Trend-Setting Solutions for Sustainable Painting Processes

Digitalisation, individualisation and climate protection are megatrends which represent challenges for coating job-shops and companies with in-house painting operations. With roughly 500 exhibitors already registered at the end of December 2019, the upcoming PaintExpo will offer a globally unparalleled range of solutions from the 21st through the 24th of April, 2020. The exhibition portfolio of the world’s leading trade fair for industrial coating technologies covers all process sequences for liquid and UV painting, as well as powder coating and coil coating.

Improve quality, productivity and sustainability, enhance efficiency and react extremely flexibly to different batch sizes and design requirements. Companies with in-house painting operations specialised in vehicle manufacturing, capital goods and consumer goods production, architectural applications and all other industry sectors are facing these challenges – regardless of whether components made of metals, plastics, wood and wooden materials, glass, composites or other materials need to be painted or coated.

PaintExpo is the world’s only information and procurement platform for industrial painting technology that covers this broad range of applications and tasks. This is confirmed by a glance at the exhibitor list of the world’s leading trade fair, for whose 8th edition from 21 to 24 April 2020 roughly 500 companies from 26 countries had already booked their booth floor space at the end of December 2019. With approximately 16,000 square metres of net exhibition floor space, they’ve already reserved more than all of the exhibition floor space occupied at the event in 2018. The industry sector’s global players will be on hand, as will its innovative small and mid-sized companies. “This makes it possible for job-shop coaters and visitors from companies with in-house coating operations to gather comprehensive information about the most up-to-date developments and trends in all areas of industrial coating technology,” explains Jürgen Haußmann, managing director of event promoters FairFair GmbH.

Focus on Automation and Digitalisation 

“Attention will of course also be focused on automation and digitalisation solutions for painting processes at the upcoming PaintExpo. In the meantime, it’s no longer just a question of automating individual coating steps, but rather of networking the process chain,” continues Jürgen Haußmann. Amongst other solutions, multi-axis robots specially designed for the coating industry and robot painting cells for liquid painting and powder coating will be presented, which combine the high quality and reproducibility of robotic painting with a flexible and cost-effective solution that also makes it possible for mid-sized and smaller companies to get started with automated painting. In the meantime, efficient solutions for offline programming of robot motion sequences are also available in addition to programs for manual teach-in. The required application technology is adapted to the respective project. New spray gun controllers assure very precise application. All painting parameters can be easily accessed and adjusted very accurately – in some cases even from a smartphone or a tablet. This also helps to limit material consumption and thus reduce operating costs. Further functions which can be effectively automated and rendered more efficient with regard to material consumption by means of new developments include paint preparation and conveyance, as well as dosing and colour changeovers. PaintExpo exhibitors will also present innovative solutions which make it possible for the operating companies to integrate their MES systems in order to implement automated monitoring of process parameters such as paint quantities, temperature and process air, right on up to spray jet monitoring, and to log and evaluate the resulting data. Quality control systems for the coated surfaces can also be integrated into the process. If a defect is detected, it’s repairs by means of automated grinding and polishing is made possible by another new development.

Individualisation with Reduced or No Overspray 

As a result of the trend towards greater individualisation, demand for multicolour coatings is continuously on the rise. The goal is to be able to apply coatings without any masking at all, or with significantly reduced masking work and less overspray. In addition to new developments for faster and easier masking, the use of electrostatic application systems, which inherently cause less overspray, is making its contribution in this regard as well. A new application solution which functions entirely without overspray is now being used in series production for two-tone vehicle roof painting. 

PaintExpo’s complete exhibition programme covers coating equipment for liquid, powder, UV, immersion and coil processes, paints and enamels for all processes, application systems, spray guns and atomisers, automation and conveyor technology, cleaning and pre-treatment, drying and curing, environmental technology, pneumatics, compressed air supply and exhaust purification, water treatment, recycling and disposal, accessories, masking, measuring and test technology, quality assurance, identification, paint stripping, job-shop coating, services and technical literature.