Design and Fabrication of Automatic Seven Tank Process of Pre-Treatment Before Powder Coating

Abstract

Powder coating is a finishing process in which dry, free flowing, thermoplastic or thermoset powder material is applied to a surface, melted, and hardened into an even coating. Pretreatment means surface preparation. Here by pretreatment, we mean metal pretreatment as the powder coating is predominantly applied to metals. Surface preparation includes: Cleaning – mechanical or chemical Mechanical cleaning includes methods like scratch brushing and sand blasting. The process of pretreatment of a material is currently totally dependent upon manual labour and thus increases the cost of the project. By making the process automatic, the cost of the project can be substantially reduced. The conventional 7 tank process contains Degreasing, Derusting, Phosphating, Passivation and three water baths. The same process will be adopted in our process but instead PLC will be used to control and automate the entire project. The setup charges are considerable but it will be one time investment to the client.