Coil Coating: The Advanced Finishing Technology

Abstract

Coil Coating is an advanced finishing technology available for different metal substrates, specifically steel and aluminum, with several millions of square meters processed each year. Born in the 60’s, the coil coating technology has gained interest in the market in the late 80’s and 90’s and it’s now booming due its peculiarities both technical as well as environmental and in terms of energy. The Coil Coated product is used in many different applications’ fields: architecture, with facades, cladding, industrial and residential roofing, shutters: transportation, with caravan, train interiors; industry, with caps, closures. The same application technology is widely used for canstock – body, ends and taps: the process concept, being the same, though with remarkable differentiation in terms of speed, metal gauges, application systems and paint qualities (water based, low gauge and highly diluted). The process and the product are both very complex: the Product consists of a combination merging metal, surface treatment and paints; the Process is thus a combination of different steps, perfectly synchronized unique in terms of speed and contact time. Metallurgy, Chemistry, Mechanics, Fluid Dynamics, Energy management: this all comes together within seconds on the same line. For Aluminum, the product features depends on metal alloy – usually 1xxx, 3xxx and 5xxx, with the most different tempers ranging from fully soft through fully hard; different paint types and qualities, ranging from standard Polyester, through the newly developed HDPE and Polyurethane with / without Polyamide to high quality PVdF and Fluopolymers. The presentation will detail these technical features highlighting the significant differences between traditional finishing and Coil Coating