Coatings Technology Blog

In production environments where high throughput and uptime are important, there’s a good chance that sticky substances can slow things down. Tacky food ingredients, adhesives and hot glues in applications like packaging, plastic molds or rubber tooling can lead to sticking issues if proper precautions are not taken. Every plant has a wide range of equipment, made of a variety of different metals, each with its own unique operating conditions. This makes finding the right coating to solve sticking issues for every situation a challenge.

Like most other production environments, food and beverage operations face many threats that can hinder the reliability of vital equipment. Wear, contamination and corrosion are just some of the everyday conditions that plant operators must guard against. In addition, food and beverage manufacturers work with sticky substances and adhesives that can slow down or stop hoppers, cylinders and extruders, as well as machines that incorporate blades. Whether the food manufacturing operation is large or small, any interruption in production has a big effect on downtime.

If you need to protect or restore a metal part, you may automatically turn to a conventional chemically deposited coating. However, thermal spray is increasingly being sought as a viable alternative to traditional coatings such as hard chrome. Thermal sprays protect a variety of metal substrates against damaging conditions and are well-suited for a long list of applications and industries. And, with the addition of polymers, they have exceptional non-stick and corrosion protection properties. For these and many other reasons, your surface protection decision shouldn’t be complete without also considering thermal sprays.

Operating environments in the aerospace industry are particularly harsh on parts and equipment. Our new video presents some of the engineered coatings General Magnaplate offers, along with the technical features that make them well-suited for use in demanding aerospace applications where failure is not an option.

Pumps are subjected to a host of threats that can impact their reliability and your operation’s productivity. Surface-enhancement coatings are a wise choice to protect pump surfaces, but choosing the right coating is anything but straightforward. You must consider many factors, including the base metal of your pump, its operating environment and the materials it will encounter. That’s why it pays to work with a coatings provider that engineers its coatings to address your application’s specific requirements and resolve any issues you are experiencing with your pumps.