2.1. Materials and Coating Formulations
In this study, three types of commonly used powder coatings, namely polyester-epoxy hybrid, polyester/TGIC (triglycidyl isocyanurate), and polyurethane (PU), were prepared. These coatings were in orange, black, and grey colors numbered 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Their properties and performances have been evaluated and optimized in separate studies and large-scale industrial productions. The formulations of the coatings are listed in
Table 1,
Table 2 and
Table 3, respectively.
An additional pigment, Ultramarine Blue 08 (Venator Materials PLC, Stockton-on-Tees, U.K.), was added to change the colors of the formulations. The distinct elements of Al and Si in this pigment were used to observe the quality of pigment dispersion by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
2.2. Workflow and Procedures
The procedure is shown as the flowchart in
Figure 1. The powders were named using a combination of a letter and a number (denoting the base formulations 1, 2, or 3) for each step in the procedure. For example, A1 denotes Powder A prepared by Formula 1 (orange hybrid powder coating), and H3 means Powder H prepared by Formula 3 (grey polyurethane powder coating). For Powder F prepared from Chip 2, 6% of the ultramarine blue was mixed with 94% of the original coating raw materials. For Powder G prepared from Chip 3, 3% of the ultramarine blue was mixed with 97% of the original coating raw materials.
The raw materials were pre-mixed and extruded in a laboratory-scale powder coating extruder (Yantai Donghui Powder Coating Equipment Co., Yantai, China). The temperatures of the infeed, plastification, and homogenizing zones were set at 75, 90, and 100 °C, respectively. The twin-screw rotation speed of 300 rpm, screw feeder speed of 10 rpm, and rolling chiller speed of 10 rpm remained constant for processing all the extrudates. The chips were pulverized to regular (coarse) powders (A, F, and G), ultrafine powders (B and D), and fine powders (I and J).
The ultrafine powders B and D were dry blended by a bench-top mixer and sieved through a 106 µm ultrasonic sieve for thorough mixing. The mixture was pressed into Tablet 1 (diameter 50 mm, packed thickness 10 mm) using a manual bench-top hydraulic press (Carver, Inc., Wabash, IN, USA) with a clamping force of 100 kN for 2 min. The press and load cell are shown in
Figure 2. Subsequently, the tablets were pulverized to Powder E, which contained 3% ultramarine blue.
Regular Powders A and F were dry blended by a bench-top mixer and sieved through the same 106 µm ultrasonic sieve for thorough mixing to prepare Powder H.
For each powder category (ultrafine, fine and regular), the particle diameters in terms of the D10, D50, and D90 values were maintained within a highly consistent narrow range for comparison of the coating properties.
Subsequently, Powders A, C, E, G, and H were electrostatically sprayed using a Gema OptiSelect corona gun and an OptiStar manual gun control unit (Gema Switzerland Gmbh, St. Gallen, Switzerland) at a constant voltage of –35 kV. Standard A-23.5 aluminum panels (Q-Lab Corporation, Westlake, OH, USA) were used as the substrates, and all the coating film thicknesses were controlled to be 75 ± 2.5 µm. Three panels were sprayed for each coating, and the means were recorded as the measurement results.
2.3. Measruments, Evaluation and Characterization Technieques
The measurements and evaluations were conducted in five groups, i.e., powder particle sizes, powder flow ability, coating colors, coating surface qualities, powder particle morphologies, and the morphologies and compositions of coatings.
The particle sizes and particle size distributions (represented by D10, D50, and D90) of the powders were measured by a laser diffraction particle size analyzer BT-9300s (Bettersize Instruments, Dandong, China).
The flow abilities of Powders A and C, E and G, and J and I were characterized by means of the angle of repose (AOR) by a Hosokawa powder tester (Hosokawa Micron B.V., Doetinchem, The Netherlands), and the avalanche angle (AVA), by a revolution powder analyzer, (Mercury Scientific Inc., Newtown, CT, USA).
The colors of coatings prepared by Powders E, G, and H were measured by a Datacolor 650 colorimeter (Datacolor, Inc., Lawrenceville, NJ, USA) using a D65 light source, with the specular included. In the CIE (International Commission on Illumination) CIELAB color space,
ΔL* (perceptual lightness),
Δa* (red and green),
Δb* (blue and yellow), and the calculated
ΔEcmc values denote the color differences [
7]. A small color difference ΔEcmc between the coatings prepared by the new and conventional methods was favorable.
The specular gloss at 20° and 60°, distinctness-of-image (DOI), and reflection haze values were measured as per ASTM D523–14, D5767–18 and D4039–09 (Reapproved 2015), using an integrated Rhopoint IQ gloss, haze and DOI meter (Rhopoint Instruments Ltd, St. Leonards-on-Sea, UK). High specular gloss, high DOI, and low reflection haze values are preferable for these high to medium gloss powder coatings, as they show good flow and leveling during curing and lower surface roughness [
8,
9].
The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) mapping were conducted in secondary electron mode on a SU3900 (Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) scanning electron microscope coupled with an Oxford Ultim Max65 SDD X-ray analyzer (Oxford Instruments plc, Abingdon, UK). The SEM was used to compare the morphology of powder particles A and C, E and G, and the EDX was performed to compare the dispersion of ultramarine pigment in the coatings prepared by Powders E, G, and H.