Looking to protect, color or decorate a piece of equipment, tool, furniture or art? Well, there are numerous options when it comes to choosing a finishing product such as liquid paint, strong primer and clear coat. With a few spray cans or some rental equipment, do-it-yourself solution should be easy. However, it may not be the ideal option for protecting and coloring your product. That’s why you need to consider more professional powder coating solution over doing it yourself.
Powder coating is a common dry finishing method that accounts for more than 15% of the overall industrial finishing industry. In the United States alone, the coating industry will rise an average of 3% per year from 2016 to 2021. Though general industrial coating and automotive coating dominate the powder coating market, powder coating demand in furniture is predicted to expand by more than 7.6 % between 2014 to 2020.
What are Powder Coatings?
Powder coating is a multi-step dry finishing process in which free-flowing electrostatically charged particles is applied to a substrate’ surface, melted, and hardened into a colorful, protective and decorative coating. This process is ideal for metal and non-metal substrates.
Components of Powder Coating
One of the benefits of using a powder coating solution is that it’s free of solvents and have small quantities of volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, making them environmentally friendly while eliminating the need for a pollution control equipment. This polluting toxic solvent is common in liquid paint and clear coat, which are known to cause can cause different respiratory diseases and health issues.
Enhanced powder coating has an appeal look and lasts longer than liquid coatings because the color is applied on the substrate surface and baked on, providing decorative and protective covering. This type of coating can be applied in different products without causing blemishes, which are common in paint coating.
Substrate Material Considerations
Stainless steel, steel and aluminum are the most common surface to be applied with powder coatings. However, they can still be applied to other materials, such as glass, wood, or medium density fiberboard among other options. For metals, they are electrically grounded and often applied to metal surfaces via deposition method, using the electrostatic spray equipment. Non-metals, on the other hand, are applied with powder coatings through the fluidized bed powder coating method.
Powder coatings are available in a variety of colors, finishes, texture and thickness that you cannot find in traditional liquid coating methods. It can be produced in a range of color options for both protective and decorative application. The coating can be made thicker, especially when using fluidized bed coating technique.
As we have seen from the application of powder coatings, the method offers a number of advantages over tradition liquid coatings solution. They include long-lasting service, environmental friendly, quick turnaround time, specialized finishes, greater coating material utilization and lower material costs.