Coatings World - broadwaycheer

the finish. The particles, which are not
aligned at all in the liquid coating, must
be perfectly positioned after the coating
has been applied. BASF Coatings suc-
ceeded in inserting physical and chemical
structures that support the alignment of
the aluminum particles during drying.
This promotes the even distribution of the
aluminum flakes, bringing about the mir-
ror effect of the coating.

This mirror effect creates powerful contrasts. The color appears particularly bright on the edges of the car body, while it has a very dark effect when viewed from the side. This flip effect between bright and dark highlights the contours of the car body.

With XFine, a stronger metallic effect has been achieved for OEM waterborne basecoats without posing highly specialized requirements for the coating process.

The independent jury of experts who chose BASF as the winner is made up of representatives from universities, design agencies, automotive journalists, as well as a member of the German Design Council.

After its win in the Automotive Brand Contest, XFine also received the 2011 Materialica Design & Technology Silver Award for its color innovation in the category surface and technology. Designer Gutjahr and Stephan Schwarte, head of color development, accepted the prize at the Materialica, 14th International Trade Fair for Materials Applications, Surface Technology and Product Engineering in Munich, Germany. The main focus of

General Motors uses eco-friendly water-based
“three-wet” paint process for Chevrolet Sonic

For the production of its subcompact Chevrolet Sonic, General Motors brought online a new paint shop at its Orion Assembly Center that features a "three-wet" paint process. The process eliminates the need for a primer bake oven, normally used between the primer and color-coating layers. The Orion Assembly Center allows three layers of paint to be applied one after another while still wet before a single trip though the oven.

This process reduces the paint shop footprint by 10 percent, said GM. It also provides additional floor space and reduces the energy needed to heat and cool these areas.

"Cutting our greenhouse gas emissions and reducing our energy consumption were key to implementing our water-based three-wet paint process," said Mauricio Pincheira, paint manager at Orion. "We want to provide a durable paint that impresses our first-time Sonic customers and maintain the tough environmental standards we have across the company."

Orion's new paint shop was engineered to minimize energy
use while reducing solvent emissions. By using the three-wet
process, a thin film pretreatment and lean design methods,
Orion's paint shop uses 50 percent less process energy per ve-
hicle than the shop it replaced, the car maker said. It is also
heated by natural and landfill gas, which results in less emis-
sions than coal-fired boilers.