Advantages and disadvantages
There are several advantages of powder coating over conventional liquid coatings:
- Powder coatings emit zero or near zero volatile organic compounds (VOC).
- Powder coatings can produce much thicker coatings than conventional liquid coatings without running or sagging.
- Powder coating overspray can be recycled and thus it is possible to achieve nearly 100% use of the coating.
- Powder coating production lines produce less hazardous waste than conventional liquid coatings.
- Capital equipment and operating costs for a powder line are generally less than for conventional liquid lines.
- Powder coated items generally have fewer appearance differences between horizontally coated surfaces and vertically coated surfaces than liquid coated items.
- A wide range of specialty effects is easily accomplished which would be impossible to achieve with other coating processes.
Types of powder coatings
There are two main categories of powder coatings: thermosets and thermoplastics. The thermosetting variety incorporates a cross-linker into the formulation. When the powder is baked, it reacts with other chemical groups in the powder to polymerize, improving the performance properties. The thermoplastic variety does not undergo any additional reactions during the baking process, but rather only flows out into the final coating
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