The area of powder coatings continues to grow and develop at a great pace through continuous innovation. The powder coatings market represents about 10-15% of the global coatings market ($17 billion+ by 2025),
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and new application sectors are being explored as new additives arrive on the market place. Raw material suppliers have to rise to the challenge, to help applicators and manufacturers meet the new demands of powder coating customers. Some key challenges for future powder coatings include displacing VOC coatings for a low environmental footprint; improving flow and edge cover properties; improving cure temperatures and times, which in turn will allow for expanding the types of materials that can be coated (e.g. plastic, wood, fiberboard); lower energy consumption during application; and corrosion protection,
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which remains a key area of interest with a desire for improvement across the industry.
Corrosion protection in powder coating is governed by a few key parameters. First and foremost is substrate preparation. Correct and appropriate pre-treatment and substrate cleaning will ensure consistent corrosion performance directly correlated to the level of adhesion achieved.
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The second key parameter is the relative impermeability of powder coatings. Water penetration into the coating and towards the substrate surface is dramatically slower than with conventional liquid coatings. This is due to the high crosslink density of thermoset polymers. This helps to slow the onset of corrosion, but the extent of the moisture penetration through the coating is also affected by a number of other factors including, but not limited to, thickness of the coating, cure, coating chemistry and pigment loading. As the market for powder coatings grows, so too does the ambition for what powder coatings can achieve.