Coating processes – With post-treatment of coating or coating material – Coating material recirculation or regeneration
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-02
2001-04-10
Beck, Shrive (Department: 1762)
Coating processes
With post-treatment of coating or coating material
Coating material recirculation or regeneration
C427S424000, C427S189000, C427S372200, C118S070000, C118S500000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06214415
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for increasing the recycling rate of coating material in a powder coating process and a jig employed in the method.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The classification for a variety of the methods for coating painting depends on whether or not a solvent is used, and can be generally divided into powder coating and liquid coating. In short, if a solvent is used, the coating process can be classified as a liquid coating; if solvent is unnecessary, it can be classified as powder coating.
Since solvents used in the process of coating can cause air and water pollution to the environment, the cost involved for environmental protection is increasing as the standards required for environmental protection are getting stricter. In addition, in considering the quality of the coating, powder coating has some advantages over liquid coating described as follows: pin holes are rarely found in powder coating; a thicker coating can be attained in one process, unlike a liquid coating, in which running of the paint usually occurs if the coat applied is too thick. Moreover, in the process of liquid coating, a primer coat and at least one finish coat is necessary, in contrast, powder coating can be completed by an application of a single coat, in other words, the process of powder coating is comparably simple. In addition, the process can proceed faster, and accordingly, the cost is lowered.
For the forgoing reasons, the application of powder coatings has been becoming more widely utilized, so the importance of improving the process of powder coating increases. Among the improved measures, some relate to the quality, some, on the other hand, relate to bringing down the cost. Regarding the cost, the recycling rate of a coating material is considered an important factor. Among the coating processes applied, aside from collecting the un-adhered coating material, there is no solution yet to solve the problem of the waste of coating material in the coating process.
The layout of an conventional powder coating process is shown in FIG.
1
. On the left hand side of the figure, an operator attaches an object C to be coated to the jig
1
. The object C and the jig
1
carried by the conveyer
2
would follow the direction indicated by the arrow and enter the coating chamber
200
′. There is a coating material recycler
100
′ in the coating chamber
200
′, which can recycle the powered coating material which does not adhere to the object C in the coating process After the coating process is finished, the object C and the jig
1
enter the baking chamber
300
′ where the baking process proceeds. After the baking process is completed, the aerator (shown in the right hand side of
FIG. 1
) pulls off the object C from jig
1
leaving jig
1
on the conveyer
2
, the entire cycle of coating process is thus complete, and then another cycle will begin following the same procedures as described above.
In the coating process, objects C are hung up and are carried along a specific route. The jigs used in the coating process would also be covered with significant amount of coating material. As the number of jigs used in a production line is enormous, the amount of coating material accumulated on the jigs would be to great to be ignored. However, since the same jig is used in coating and baking process, the coating material covered on the jig cannot be recycled after being baked. Moreover, if the jig is continually used, the coating material accumulated on the jig would grow thicker until the layer is too thick to be mounted with the object to be coated. Generally, a jig cannot be used over twenty times and then has to be discarded, and that increases the cost of the process. The object of the present invention is to improve the rate of the recycled coating material and to increase the life span of the jig.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method for recycling coating material in a powder coating process in order to increase the recycled rate for a conventional powder coating process, and relates to a jig employed in the same method.
The jig as used in the present invention is a separable assembly consisted of a base and a cover. While the coating is in processing, the object to be coated is attached to the assembled jig. The characteristics of the jig is that when the object is attached to the jig, it forms with the jig an almost sealed chamber, therefore, all the coating material would substantially adhere on the object and the cover of assembled jig, namely, the coating material would not adhere to the base of the jig. After the process is completed, the cover of the jig (hereinafter referred to as jig cover) is separated from the base of the jig (hereinafter referred to as jig base), and the jig cover will next enter the (coating material) recycling chamber in which the coating material adhering on the jig cover will be recycled. Using this jig, the coating material not adhering on the object will almost be completely recycled. In the coating process, the object is hung on the jig base and is carried with the jig base by a conveyor and transported to the baking chamber. After finishing baking, the object is taken off of the jig base by the operator, and the base is carried to the next stop for processing where an another operator will put a jig cover which has been recycled onto the jig base. The assembled jig is transported to the next stop where an operator will put a object to be coated onto the jig, and the procedures are repeated for the next cycle.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4319543 (1982-03-01), Shank
patent: 4901666 (1990-02-01), Nagasaka et al.
patent: 5292547 (1994-03-01), Schlumpf et al.
Liao C. M.
Yu Janson
Beck Shrive
Crockford Kirsten A.
Enlight Corporation
Senniger Powers Leavitt & Roedel
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