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Nano-ceramic on aluminium (aluminum)

Hi I'm an factory development manager based in Hungary, my background is mainly in subcontract, around twenty years around small metal shops with some exposure to powder coating and wet painting.

We have a conventional light iron phosphate (single stage phosphate and two rinses stages) we are starting to process aluminium die cast components and at the moment these are being prepared by sand blasting. This is a cost and extra operation we could do without and seems like overkill for indoor painted products so we would like to explore alternatives. In the plant up until now they have processed indoor aluminium products with no additional pre-treatment, I'm just not comfortable powder coating (epoxy-poly and poly) straight onto what would be basically washed aluminium.

My instinct is to go with the option of adding Fluoride to the iron phosphate, but we process mainly steel so this brings a few problems with tank PH being low.

The alternative offered by our supplier is a room temperature nano-ceramic product on top of Iron Phosphate (as a wash and prep). I'm working through my contacts but thought I'd ask here as the site has a US following and I know nano-tech coatings are reasonably well known over there. Does anyone process aluminium die cast component with nano-tech products. I'm concerned that nano-technology is currently the Iphone v1 at the moment and performance and environmental issues will become apparent over time so I'm looking for any experience in real world situations rather than products and processes picked for me by a potential supplier.

Finally does anyone have experience of NT only systems, I could see this being easier to sell as we could make some savings on energy and waste treatment costs? At the moment our supplier is skeptical about this option for us due to the variability in the surface prep on our components (die cast alu, stainless fab., black metal fab., punched, laser cut, spinning, polished, zintec, alu sheet and extrusion).

Any help or information would be appreciated.

George Peattie
Factory Development - Tamasi, Hungary
August 19, 2008

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A. Nano tech is also quite ripe in Europe. The latest tech is waterborne nano coatings offering environmentally and personnel friendly materials. This strain of nano coatings can be used as "stand alone" weather protective coating for ferrous and non ferrous substrates. Films of <2 microns are being applied to aluminium sheeting are being used in the refurbishment of some of the very well known landmarks across Europe. From the same family one can produce "finger-print less" for metal, ceramic and glass substrates. Another feature would be their ability to produce anti-graffiti coatings. The same technology will also produce a primer (2 microns) that will CHEMICALLY bond to the substrate which in turn acts as an adhesion and weather enhancement primer for over-coating with a polyester powder. Due to its outstanding adhesion to all metals these materials seem to offer the coating industry a new avenue to evaluate that their use will offer improvement of the environment and are perfectly safe in their use. Note: Ideal for PC as they require 180-200 °C cure. Terry Hickling Birmingham, United Kingdom < Q. Dear sir, presently we are using zinc phosphating (pre treatment) process before black painting. can we change the from zinc to nano process what are the advantages and disadvantages. Bhaskra Rao paint shop - Hyderabad, Ancdhara Pradesh, India

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