Finishing - May-June 2022

14 POWDER COATINGS
Enhanced sustainability
Since 1986 QUALICOAT has continued
to work as a membership run
organisation to standardise and improve
the quality of powder coatings by setting a
standard that is regularly updated following
evidence-backed research. Today
QUALICOAT, based in Zurich, can claim a
global licensed membership of powder
manufacturers, pretreatment systems providers
and powder coaters who are all third party
inspected to the current QUALICOAT
Specification.
In the UK & Ireland QUALICOAT has its
own Association that inspects and awards
licences across the region. Membership in the
UK & Ireland continues to grow and now
encompasses virtually all of the major
architectural powder coaters across the British
Isles.
Over the years the QUALICOAT Standard
has been improved and updated to ensure
that current powder coating best practice is
undertaken by all licence and approval
holders. Part of a licence holders responsibility
is the provision of regular coated samples for
extended ‘acetic salt spray’ and in some cases
‘filiform corrosion’ testing at the appointed test
house, in the case of QUALICOAT UK &
Ireland, this is at IFO Netherlands BV. In a
very small number of these test samples it was
noticed that premature failure could occur
following these very corrosive and accelerated
tests. With the cause of the issue unknown,
QUALICOAT set up a working group of
Members to try to identify what was causing
the issue and how this could be eliminated to
further enhance powder coating durability.
It became obvious during research that the
aluminium alloy itself was the contributing
factor, so the working group began to develop
a specification for the alloys used in
fenestration, namely alloy 6060 and 6063.
The resulting alloy specification, which forms
Appendix A13 of the QUALICOAT
Specifications 2022, requires the alloys to fall
within the EN573-3:2019 Standard, which can
be met using primary or secondary (recycled)
aluminium and requires the following three
tests to be carried out:
1. Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES)
2. Anodic Cyclic Polarisation (ACP)
Angus Mackie
3.Metallographic Study for Aluminium
All requirements of these tests need to be
undertaken and passed by an independent
test house before an approval is awarded. By
ensuring that the alloy is of the correct
standard, with reduced inclusions and
improved grain consistency, it has been
demonstrated by QUALICOAT that
architectural powder coat finishes can be
further enhanced for sustainability, especially
when used with Class 2 powders (superdurable)
and Class 3 powders (hyper-durable)
Appendix A13 of the QUALICOAT
Specifications is aimed at specifiers who have
large facade projects and wish to take
advantage of the additional protection that
comes from a ‘QUALICOAT 3.0’ Specification.
Whilst the current QUALICOAT supply chain
includes powder manufacturers, pretreatment
systems providers and architectural powder
coaters, QUALICOAT 3.0 introduces for the
first time the aluminium extruders into the
QUALICOAT powder coating supply chain.
Specifiers who wish to take advantage of
QUALICOAT 3.0 should in the first instance
contact QUALICOAT UK & Ireland for
guidance on specification and help in
choosing the correct supply chain.
Finishing - May/June 2022