Powder coatings have many advantages such as investment cost, occupational safety and worker health, ability to be used even on non-metallic surfaces and cleanl
Energy-saving
One of the most important advantages of powder coating is the reduced air supply to the painting booth. Because powder coatings do not contain compounds that evaporate at ambient temperature, the air fed into the cabin can be reused within the factory. This is an important advantage, especially for factories in places where difficult weather conditions prevail. Another important advantage is that the oven ventilation required for powder coating is much less than for liquid paints. Evaporation is very low in powder coatings.
Labor Savings
Powder paints are ready for use when received by the user. It does not need to be mixed with any solvent or catalyst before the application process, as is the case with many wet paints. This convenience not only reduces the required facility space, but also eliminates a very important variable to control in order to ensure adequate film properties in liquid paints. Once the process is started, there is no need to keep critical parameters such as PH and viscosity in wet paints, or solids, specific resistance, binder/pigment ratio in electrostatic systems, under control. As a result, the skills and training required of operators to work in powder coating systems are much less than in wet coating systems. Due to the simplicity of powder coating systems, it is possible to switch to automation. In such systems, little or no manual reinforcement may be required.
High Production Efficiency
Depending on the first use of powder coating, the efficiency can be accepted as 100% in air-embossed bed operations and 50-80% in electrostatic spray operations. The unusable 20-50% amount can be collected appropriately during the application operation and reused in the next operation. Thus, powder paint usage efficiency is increased to 95-98%. In wet paint systems, the efficiency is between 20-90%. Since it is practically impossible for powder coatings to have problems such as dripping, flowing or sagging, the amount of errors has decreased significantly. If poorly painted areas are detected before the curing phase, the part can be removed from the paint with an air gun and painted again. Since it does not contain solvents and does not require a flash off period, powder coatings can be taken directly into the oven. This provides significant savings in application time and facility space. In addition, the risk of unwanted particles or dust adhering to the painted part that may occur during the flash-off phase is very low, thus minimizing the number of defective products. Compared to wet paints, it is possible to obtain equal or better film properties with a single coat of paint. Since powder paints are fully cured during the baking process, paint damage that may occur during the removal of the parts from the oven, assembly, assembly and packaging is much less than wet paint. This not only shortens the processing time of parts but also reduces the number of errors. Much higher physical and chemical resistance is achieved with thermoset powder paints than their liquid paint equivalents. In this way, the packaging costs required to prevent the unpainted part from being damaged during transportation can be reduced significantly. Finally, the space required for the storage of powder coatings and the powder coating production facility is often much less than that of wet paint.
Environmental Factor
Although powder paints do not contain any solvents, on average 60-70% of wet paints are solvents. These solvents, which evaporate during application and baking, are not recycled, and their direct release to the atmosphere is restricted by some standards. Therefore, in wet paint systems, a burner is placed in the chimney and the solvents are burned before being released into the atmosphere. This burner not only brings an additional cost, but also combustion waste negatively affects environmental pollution. Another important environmental factor is the environmentally harmful wastes such as sludge, filled filters, and cleaning solvent that emerge after liquid paint applications. Disposing of this waste is both costly and harmful to the environment. The cabins used in the application of liquid paint systems are generally systems washed with pressurized water. The flowing paint is cleaned with water and the wastewater is sometimes given directly to the sewer and sometimes to the settling tanks. Solid waste problems are almost eliminated in powder coating systems. Many waste powder paints can be easily disposed of in certain areas in nature. If dust formation is a problem, it can be wetted with water or cured in the oven for a while.