Today, cars are more than just a mode of transportation. From raw material manufacturers & formulators to automotive OEMs, everyone is regularly searching for ways to make things faster, better and cheaper. Constant advancements in materials such as lightweight plastics, specialized coatings, etc. can help develop desired surface finish as well as meet other requirements, like:
- Robust in design
- Elite in performance
- Compliant to environmental challenges and regulations at the same time
Printing/coating on plastic is a growing and challenging market. They have been successfully used for many years, but new opportunities arise daily that remind formulators how difficult achieving adhesion can be.
Among several coatings used today,
radiation cured coatings are gaining momentum meeting the:
- Stringent environmental legislations,
- Durability requirements,
- Tougher OEM standards etc.
Let’s discuss about developments in these coatings in detail…
Curing Processes – Then and Now
Coaters and decorators used to paint, or coat plastics parts using water or solvent-based coatings and then dry them all thermally in large curing ovens. Though effective, yet:
- The water-based coatings required very high energy input to drive off the water content
- The VOC emissions from drying solvent-based formulations required expensive containment or treatment equipment
- The drying ovens simply took up a huge amount of space
Curing processes for coatings such as Ultraviolet (UV), electron beam (EB), IR (infrared), dual/hybrid cure etc. are gaining attention of manufacturers thanks to their benefits such as lower VOC, fast processing speed, cost-effectiveness, flexibility in applications etc. High scratch resistance, abrasion as well as chemical resistance are among the key benefits offered by these coatings making them
suitable for plastics and polymer substrates widely used today in vehicles parts, such as:
- Exterior body
- Interior coatings
- Under-the-hood components
- Lighting reflector housing
- Headlamps, door handles, mirrors,
- Side molding, body panels
- Tail lamps
- And many more…
Continue reading to understand more about different curing processes used today for plastics and polymer substrates and how they fulfill market requirements »