Outlines the current state of the art and the future of electrophoretic protective and cosmetic (EPPC) coatings, in which the author’s company, LVH Coatings Limited, deals. LVH Coatings is a manufacturer and supplier of EPPCs internationally. Its existing range of Clearclad products is supplied, through a network of distributors, to a variety of industries throughout the world.
nvestigating the electrodeposition properties of PEEK from solvents such as ethanol and acetone presents difficulties due to the higher density of the polymer particles relative to that of the solvent. The settling rate in unagitated baths is too rapid to obtain consistent deposits. Whole-bath or bulk agitation aimed at maintaining particle suspension can disturb electrodeposits due to eddies and other turbulent flow effects. To eliminate settling, mixtures of two solvents have been employed, the individual solvents having respectively lower and higher densities than PEEK. The proportions of the mixture are adjusted to be the same density as PEEK so that a colloid-like suspension of PEEK particles is possible. This enables the electrodeposition of PEEK to be studied without any significant gravitation or whole-bath agitation effects. Eliminating mechanical agitation of the suspension enables a study of the influence of target electrode movement alone on the rate and quality of electrodeposition. Note: The origin of this paper is in a project to establish if PEEK could be applied as a controllable conformal thin film onto a specific non-planar substrate geometry by using electrophoretic deposition. The paper describes only the development of a reliable methodology to investigate the feasibility of this project. The details of the project as a whole are outside the scope of the paper.
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