Coatings & Surface Engineering News

What are the elements of innovation in coatings? Material performance, energy savings, ease of maintenance, and environmental safety, to name a few. There are lots of new products and services on the market, helping companies large and small increase their bottom line while reducing their emissions and toxic waste. New low VOC, wet application paints are changing how automakers coat new cars; protective coatings on refinery systems can show overheating by changing color; and new application methods couple powders with specific heat treating to control both the look and characteristics of the surface. What new products or processes are you using, or developing?

Dicronite dry lubrication reduces friction, increasing the performance of bearings, connectors, sleeves, and other rotating and sliding components under extreme conditions. Widely used for wear, fretting/galling issues, plastic mold release, high temp (+538 C), vacuum, and precision (0.5 μm film) applications. Dicronite dry lubrication is RoHS and ISO-10993 compliant, NADCAP accredited, with facilities worldwide.

Cor-Cote HB Urethane provides the industry's fastest return to service — four hours vs seven days required by conventional epoxy. Ideal for municipal and industrial wastewater facility assets, including clarifiers, settling tanks, wet wells, and grit chambers. Low-VOC Cor-Cote HB delivers high abrasion resistance, increased film integrity, and superior edge retention.

New proprietary advanced coating designs and reflectors. Used for any angular range between 0° and 65° A.O.I. A multitude of spectral bands or multiple bands inside 120 nm and 10.6 microns spectral range are achievable. Reflectors can be used for a multi-use component in a wide variety of optical applications.

When quick installation and convenience are required, it's hard to beat the Easy Clip Plastic Nozzles and Clip Nozzle Adapters from Lechler.

Pop-in ball design holds the nozzle in place while you screw on the retaining ring for one-hand installation. Removal is just as quick, with no tools required.

A scratch-resistant coating that first found use in display technology has a new life as a surface treatment for in vivo and blood collection devices. The new coating is durable and non-biofouling, meaning it will not cause any adverse reaction like adsorption of or adhesion to bodily tissues or fluids that might result in skewed data collection.

A transparent coating shows promise as a barrier to reduce the outgassing of hydrogen sulfide from imported low-grade drywall. The coating is based on a proprietary nanoscale zinc and titanium dioxide solution that can be added to surfaces, including textiles, to seal in volatile organic compounds or other chemicals that produce noxious fumes. The coating also offers protection from a broad spectrum of microorganisms.

It takes epoxy and urethane as well as finely-ground precision lens and high-tech controls to see deep into the universe. The McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas at Austin was recently upgraded with new protective surfaces, including 300 gallons of epoxy and 150 gallons of high solids urethane. To ensure the safety of the sensitive equipment housed inside and the protection of the surrounding environment, the surfaces were cleaned and prepped using a walnut shell blast process. Watch the video to see how one company does it.

One company expanded their offering of steel bar gratings for industrial flooring to include more specialized architectural applications, requiring an upgrade of their powder coating and cleaning processes. To handle working with galvanized steel and its inherent zinc contamination problems, the company implemented a closed loop cleaning and pretreatment system featuring a chemical wash holding tank, high-pressure washers, a solution return system, and an evaporator.

If you currently have an employee in your plant that is standing at a sandblast cabinet for more than four hours per day, then you should consider a Gibson Abrasive Blaster. Our machines can reduce labor costs dramatically. Stop standing around and start enjoying huge savings.

Polycorp has added four new products to our extensive catalogue of natural and synthetic rubber linings. The new offerings include red and black natural rubber for abrasion resistance and a blend of nitrile and natural rubber for moderate oil resistance. Contact Polycorp for more information.

JENFAB Aqueous Cleaning machines continually filter, re-circulate, and reuse water to precision clean CNC turned parts, stampings, deep drawn, precision machined, medical components, and Swiss screw machine parts.

Immersion, spray, and turbulation combine to provide short cycle times for removing chips-oil, carbon, and buffing compounds. Ultrasonics provide precision-cleaning capabilities.

Deburring and finishing is an expensive, time consuming operation. The Diamond Flex-Hone® Tool is the perfect solution for deburring, edge blending, and surface finishing of hard materials like carbide, ceramic, and aerospace steel alloys.

The Flex-Hone® can be used online in machine tool applications or offline as a secondary operation.

How can you make a pressure sensitive adhesive that is both sticky and respositionable? You use spherical microscopic particles that are larger than the particles found in common adhesives. The larger microspheres create a discontinuous surface that adheres to a substrate only in certain spots, providing the option to remove and reposition labels while still maintaining stable adhesion.

Not exactly as pithy as "a rolling stone gathers no moss", but the idea is similar. Researchers at Kansas State University discovered that algae prefer textured topology to flat surfaces. In recent studies, the team grew two species of fast-growing, oil-rich algae on a dimpled, stainless steel, thin-film surface. Once attached, the algae grew quickly into clumps that were several millmeters thick. The results are promising for the cultivation of algae for fuel and the research team is theorizing how to build systems for large volume production.

From Design News, a spinetingling tale of how a set of gummed up gears resulted in the untimely tribological death of an innocent, hard-working pump. What was the culprit? How could this tragedy have been averted? One detective offers a clue: never use a gear design where two soft materials rub together...

We've seen self-healing characteristics in paints and polymers; now, researchers are unveiling metal coatings that can do the same. The new substance contains nano-sized polymer capsules that burst and release their corrosion-resistant contents when the coating is scratched. It's the first self-healing coating that can be electroplated, making it a suitable for resolving wear and tear problems on industrial equipment.

Blackening for 6000/7000 series aluminum. AnoBlack EC/EC7 provides electrolytic blackening using inorganic metallic salts in lieu of organic dyes. A 100% smut-free coating that will not fade under extremes of light or temperature. Meets MIL-A­8625, Type II, Class 2 for black sulfuric anodized aluminum. More about Anoplate.

Device Technologies has been powder coating linear (reel-to-reel) substrates for its own Spring-Fast® wire protection grommet edging. The powder coatings work so well for us, we've decided to offer linear powder coating services to other industrial users.

Coating technologies can be creative as well as practical and protective! Custom automotive paint jobs are in demand, and one German company is combining their premium paint products with a training program that features a celebrity in the airbrushing arena. The training course includes the latest in theory and hands-on training for experts to expand their experience and to experiment with new techniques.

Researchers at the University of Wyoming at Laramie are studying the DNA of spiders to figure out how the crafty arachnids coat their silk web strands with a sticky glue. Their study identified two new glycoproteins that were produced from opposite strands of the same DNA. Scientists are hoping that they can clone the genes and use bacterial cultures to produce large volumes of the bio-based glue as a replacement for petroleum-based substances.

Is the Dreamliner Just a Dream?

With all the negative press that the airline industry has endured, will the arrival of the new Dreamliner herald a new age of air travel?