Industrial Coatings

This report broadly surveys the coatings industry status in general, based on geographic consumption, end-use industry (automotive, architectural, etc), application type (solventborne, waterborne, etc), and fundamental resin component (acrylic, urethane, etc). The effects of environmental concerns and changing regulations are also discussed. The process technology evaluations, however, require a significant narrowing of the breadth of the scope. Therefore, a single industry end-use was assumed, namely automotive, because of the relatively large production volumes involved and the breadth of technology employed. The scope was further refined to focus on coatings applied during manufacture (original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, coatings).

The processes evaluated in this report include a water-based formulation for an electrodeposited coating, a solventborne base coat (color coating for base coat / clear coat technology), and a waterborne base coat. The stepwise sequences of batch operations are shown for each coating process, and manufacturing economics are developed and presented. While these processes are specific to automotive OEM coatings, and the electrodeposition coating is only applicable to electrolytically coat metal substrates, the solventborne and waterborne coatings are relatively representative of coatings industry as a whole. The resins and other ingredients may change, according to the product formulation desired, but the types of steps involved and operations used are representative of most coatings processes.