The regulatory environment surrounding the application of coatings is growing increasingly challenging. Complying with these regulations has spawned a myriad of new technologies such as waterborne, powder and more recently the use of carbon dixodide for viscosity reduction. The U.S> Army Tank-automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) has sponsored a program under the Army Acquisition Pollution Prevention Program involving the University of Detroit Mercy (UDM) to develop a lower Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) Chemical AgentResistant Coating (CARC) using the supercritical carbon dioxide as the solvent in the painting process. This complements the waterborne program that is already well into the development phase. The carbon dixoide process not only allows lower VOC coatings to be used, but the decompressive atomization results in improved transfer efficiency which benefits both overall emissions and potentially the economics of the paints application process. The reduced VOC coating applied using the carbon dioxide process program is in the trial phase and large components have been painted success fully in production facilities. The coating used is a moisture cured urethane system with a heavy pigment loading.
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