Among the various types of industrial coatings available today, UV cationic coatings provide a very attractive and viable option for OEMs and sheet metal fabricators. They offer great precoated deep raw steels to sheet metal fabrication processes and effective delivery transport mechanism that inhibit pathogen but provide biocidal efficacy. The modern industrial coatings has the capacity for offering sufficient coating elongation while preventing coating shearing or separating away from the substrate of sheet metal. It can also help keep full opacity while incorporating the latest state-of-the-art specialty pigments or colorants.
Achieving all those while still maintaining the desired coating properties such as UV resistance, abrasion and scratch resistance, hardness, gloss retention and more. The successful outcome of this particular coating formulation requires a good combination of the right materials to use, methods employed and the apparatus.
- Materials - coatings for both food and non-food steel containers come in various formulations to suit certain methods and apparatus requirements. Once the method and apparatus employed enable the conformal coating of epoxide group polymers on sheet steel substrates under UV, it is commonly known as cationic coating. Industrial coatings that combine epoxides with cationic UV energy cure reactive materials will improve the excellent properties of flexible and formable industrial coatings.
- Methods - the most applicable method for cationic coating upon roll-to-roll or sheeted deep draw steel is more likely the in-line roll coating. It allows for highly controllable film thickness of industrial coating, which in turn, results to 100% opacity of all fabricated common sheet metal steel used in most consumer products.
- Apparatus - typically, formulation of cationic precoating for formable deep draw steel would require a roll-to-roll coil web or roll-to-sheeted configuration. In the case of high value consumer products, they would require a coil instead of sheeted deep draw steel formats for achieving material cost savings, preventing damage on the material and easy handling and transportation.