The automotive industry has quickly recognised the significant added value of UV technology due to its particularly low environmental impact, improved quality of the finished product and high productivity. Thanks to superior chemical and mechanical properties such as wear, abrasion and corrosion, functional UV coatings are now commonly used in the automotive industry, on both interior and exterior components of cars and motorcycles.
UV curable coatings and adhesives are used for plastic hub caps, BMC reflectors and polycarbonate lenses for headlights, interior and exterior trims and mouldings, brake disks, bearings, rotors and other mechanical components. In all of these applications, UV technology uses chemistries with low or no VOCs and the process is faster compared to conventional thermal drying techniques.
Another recent and innovative application is vacuum or physical vapour deposition (PVD) technology, which is used to transfer thin layers of metal (i.e. chrome and aluminium). This coating technology, used in combination with UV primers and top coats, has significantly improved productivity and the chemical/mechanical performance of the finished products. But most importantly, the environmental impact has been drastically reduced by producing plastic automotive components with this technology. In the past, metal finishes were obtained using the old, highly polluting process of chrome electro-plating, which requires baths of hex or trivalent chrome.
The use of UV technology in this manner has improved the performance of the finished products, expanded the areas of application to all types of plastic materials, and most importantly has eliminated the release of toxic substances into the environment.