Automotive paint

As mass production of cars made the process untenable, paint began to be dried in ovens.

Nowadays, two-component (catalyzed) paint is usually applied by robotic arms and cures in just a few hours either at room temperature or in heated booths.

Base coat used in automotive applications is commonly divided into three categories: solid, metallic, and pearlescent pigments.

Usually sprayed on top of a colored basecoat, clearcoat is a glossy and transparent coating that forms the final interface with the environment.

The clear coats applied to the plastic components like the bumpers and wing mirrors however are 2K systems since they can normally only accept temperatures up to about 90 °C.

These 2K systems are normally applied "off line" with the coated plastic parts fixed to the painted metallic body.

Modern car paints are nearly always an acrylic polyurethane "enamel" with a pigmented basecoat and a clear topcoat.

[9] Modern car paint is typically made from acrylic-polyurethane hybrid dispersions, which are a combination of two different plastics.

[10] They were developed during the 1970's and 80's as a water-soluble replacement for enamel paints, following health concerns over their high VOC content.

Simply mixing the materials is not sufficient, as this give heterogeneous coating with separate acrylic and polyurethane domains.

Instead, the starting chemicals for each plastic (monomers) are combined and partially polymerized to give an interpenetrating polymer network.