Saint-Gobain Coating Solutions is your trusted partner for materials and equipment that meet your most demanding application challenges. Backed by our extensive technological resources, Saint-Gobain applies our material science and processing expertise to develop innovative materials and solutions for a wide range of coating technologies, including thermal spray, hardfacing, magnetron sputtering, and EB-PVD. Our plants in the United States and France manufacture consumables and equipment for functional coatings in a broad range of markets such as aerospace, energy, automotive, and electronics.
Thermal spray is a method of coating work pieces with a metallic (in which case the term "metallizing" is often used), ceramic or a hard metal coating. One of the most common uses of metallizing is metallic anticorrosion coatings in industries, such as marine, oil & gas, and civil engineering. Metals such as zinc, aluminum, or their mixtures are used as a sacrificial coating to protect the underlying components from corrosion.
Anticorrosion coatings are typically made by either flame wire spraying or wire-arc spraying. The first uses a combustion flame to melt a feedstock wire and propelling it towards the substrate with compressed air. The latter uses electrical discharge to melt the wire, while similarly using compressed air to propel the molten particles to the substrate.
With the most premium of the galvanic coatings, thermal spray aluminum (TSA), all metal structures can be protected in the most aggressive environments like marine and coastal areas. The performance of the metallization provides a lifetime four to five times longer than paint solutions due to its passive and galvanic protection.
While wire-arc spraying is more widely used due to its high throughput of material, wire-flame spraying has its distinct advantages:
- The coatings are denser and less oxidized, lending to longer lifetime for the same thickness.
- Flame spraying has a higher deposition efficiency. This means that for the same amount of wire sprayed through the torch, 30-80% more material ends up in the coating.
- This leads to substantial savings in material costs in the long run.
- The spray torch is smaller, lighter, and easier to handle, leading to less fatigue for the operators.
The Z-Jet is the smallest wire flame spray in our line of torches, especially designed for anticorrosion coating. It can spray the most common anticorrosion metals, such as zinc, aluminum and zinc/aluminum wires from a wide range of diameters, from 1.5 mm (1/16’’) to 4.75 mm (3/16’’). It is very small (200 by 150 by 90 mm) and light at under 2 kg.
The coatings produced by spraying molten metal have high adhesion to the substrate and is resistant to shocks and scratches. They can also be painted for improved esthetic finish. Owing to its reliability and ease of operation, the Z-Jet is the ideal tool for all your anticorrosion needs.
Source: Saint-Gobain Coating Solutions, www.coatingsolutions.saint-gobain.com.