Infrared heating for a sustainable powder coating technology

The recent energy crisis revealed the dependence of many manufacturing companies on fossil fuels. Industrial processes need to be transformed into sustainable alternatives. For powder coatings, which traditionally rely on gas or oil heating systems, infrared radiation can deliver the required process heat. The strong dependence of the IR absorption on the geometry of the irradiated parts as well as on the color and sort of the coating powder has to be considered before the implementation of this innovative heating. The aim of the NAPUBEST project (German abbreviation for „Nachhaltige Pulverbeschichtungs-Technologie“ which means „Sustainable Powder Coating Technology“) is to get a better understanding of these correlations. In our laboratory, we realized a prototype of an IR oven for test measurements. The high reflectivity of silver-coated reflector sheets facilitates the concentration of infrared radiation inside the oven. On the other hand, the absorption of powder-coated samples in different paint colors has an impact on the heating efficiency. First tests of the equipment and measurements of the angle dependence of the reflectivity of various coated samples are presented.