“Another ascending trend is the use of non-me-tallic colors either on the full body or in combinations with metallic coatings,” Czornij noted. “These
metallic colors appear anywhere from very sparkling to pure and smooth, with just a hint of effect.
In this way, colors appear to have different character depending on the time of the day or whether
they are in direct sunlight or in shade.”
Performance
Coatings performance is critical to OEMs,
whether it is beautiful, long-lasting colors or
ease of application.
“Our customers are always looking for pret-
ty much the same thing – they want paints that
do what they promise,” said Michelsen. “So they
want great colors and color consistency, smooth
application characteristics and ultimately, that it looks great
and continues to look great on the car. Because our specialty
OEM customers are high-end, the colors they are looking for
are usually very unique. We also see a much greater empha-
sis on sustainability than we have in the past, so they want
waterborne paints or very low VOC paints, and fast-drying
products that require less energy are important. With the
McLaren F1 car, efficiency is extremely important, because
they can’t wait around for the paint to dry while they are
preparing for the next race. That carries over to some ex-
tent with the road car, where they have put an emphasis on
weight, so they want few layers of paint.”
“Customers are looking for innovative ways to lower costs
and shrink their footprint without giving up quality,” said Alex
Shimazaki, vice president – global accounts, BASF Coatings
North America. “BASF has several things that fit that bill, such
as our iGloss, ColorFuse and 3 Wet Process Technologies.
“One of our key customers, Nissan, uses the 3 Wet water-borne process for the production of its Infinity ‘J’ series and
Nissan Pathfinder SUVs at its Smyrna, TN assembly plant,”
said Shimazaki. “The process eliminates the need for a primer
bake oven normally used between the primer and color-coating
layers. The Smyrna manufacturing plant allows three layers of
paint to be applied one after another while still wet before
a single trip through the oven. Previous processes required
the vehicle to bake in between the primer application and the
topcoat layers. Implementation of this new technology reduces
energy consumption, cost and emissions while increasing pro-
duction efficiency.”
Susan Brennan, Nissan’s vice president of manufacturing in
Smyrna, noted that improving energy efficiency is an important
goal for her company.
“Nissan is committed to increase energy efficiency as we
reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing the highest
quality vehicles sold in North America,” said Brennan. “These
efforts align with our global strategies of zero-emissions lead-
ership and corporate social responsibility to employees, stake-
holders and customers.”
The state-of-the-art facility sets new standards for quality,
efficiency and environmental impacts, as it is capable of reduc-
ing energy consumption by 30%, carbon emissions by 30% and
VOC emissions by 70%.
Another new high performance process from BASF is
ColorFuse technology. This is an advanced coating technology that provides a highly efficient, integrated painting process
via the integration or “fusion,” of the traditional basecoat and
clearcoat into a single coating layer.
“It reduces the baking steps required from two to three,”
added Shimazaki. “This technology reduces material usage
and lowers VOC emissions while still providing excellent
appearance, physical properties and outdoor durability.
Lastly, we have our iGloss, which is a clearcoat that combines the advantages of inorganic ‘hard’ materials with those
of organic ‘soft’ materials. The hybrid material delivers improved scratch resistance without increasing brittleness. The
technology does not require any significant changes in the
application process. The clearcoat offers better protection
against microscratches, which you might get at the car wash
for example, With iGloss, you can enjoy that new car effect
for a much longer period of time.” CW
42 | Coatings World
www.coatingsworld.com
March 2013
