Adhesion of electron beam curable coatings on metal substrates

Electron beam (EB) curing is growing more and more important as a curing technique in industrial coatings, for example on substrates like wood, paper and plastics. However, commercial applications of EB curing on metal substrates are rather limited. The main technical cause for this originates from the insufficient adhesion and flexibility shown by EB cured coatings when applied on metal parts. However, adhesion and flexibility can be improved by various ways, in particular via a proper choice of the chemical pretreatment of the substrate. Adhesion of coatings, based on acrylated resins, on hot dipped galvanized steel can be improved dramatically by using a pretreatment, which is not usual in the current field of commercial coil coating. Pretreatments investigated show no relationship to surface tension, so it is highly probable that a chemical graft reaction, initiated by the electron beam, occurs at the interface of the coating and pretreatment layer. Experiments also show that cationic curing binder systems show promise with respect to adhesion and flexibility. Without optimizing the coating formulation (no wetting agents or other additives are used) relatively good adhesion and flexibility can be obtained on hot dipped galvanized steel, under both wet and dry conditions. The adhesion and flexibility are shown to be dependent on the radiation dose, and can be further improved by post-heating. In this case the polymer network gets the opportunity to relax internal stresses that are built up during the cure reaction.