Schiavello ’s new powder coat technology allows greater product design freedom and reduces environmental impact.Schiavello Group has implemented the world’s most advanced MDF (Medium Density Wood Fibreboard) powder coat installation, working closely with DuPont.
The powder coating line applies specialised UV powder finishes on various heat sensitive substrates, such as MDF wood and plastics, providing cost effective, highly durable finishes that are environmentally sound. Schiavello’s purpose built facility is designed to accommodate the new process, based on successful installations in Europe and America.
The facility features a dual system powder plant, setting new benchmarks for coating performance, finish and repeatability on MDF wood furniture products. The system enables the plant to cure powder on wood utilising Ultraviolet (UV) curing and thermal curing, known as Ultra-low bake (ULB).The Ray-Tec UV finish developed by DuPont meets international standards (FIRA 6250 and DIN 68861) for hard wearing horizontal work surfaces, such as desktops.
The Alesta ULB provides a highly durable coating for furniture with lower requirements for chemical resistance, such as storage units and vertical faces. The fully automated process delivers high productivity with consistent quality, and for the first time, the application of colours and metallic finishes can be matched to those applied to metals and other painted surfaces within the one interior space.
Powder coating provides an alternative to existing surface treatments offering a different surface structure. The application of powder paint to the substrate is a single step process that completely envelops the product with a smooth, seamless and highly durable coating. This new streamlined process enables designers to consider more complex furniture shapes with multiple curves and profiles, where traditional technologies that rely on edge-banding methods would have limited use and effectiveness.
“This new powder coating solution for engineered wood is the most exciting finishing method to be introduced since the inception of powder coating steel and aluminium, offering significant performance improvements and reduced costs whilst offering the best solution to meeting environmental regulation, both now and in the future,” says Michael McCormick of Dupont.
Schiavello’s new wood powder coating process has been shown to reduce life cycle environmental impacts by 20 per cent when compared with the traditional melamine lamination of board.This provides increased flexibility with the colour and form of components for commercial office furniture and fitout, and a reduction in environmental impact, compared with the standard pre-laminated board alternative.When this process is coupled with using the E0 (JIS F3*) board now being supplied to Schiavello, then a new environmental benchmark for the industry is established.The E0 board reduces formaldehyde emissions from the board by about 70 per cent of the industry standard E1 board.
Source: Building Products News.