## The History of Paint

History of Paint Paint is generally a group of emulsions consisting of pigments in suspension within a liquid medium for use as decorative or protective coatings. It has been in use for approximately 30,000 years. People living in caves used raw paints to create figures representing their lives graphically, and these figures have survived to the present day. However, paint and coatings became a true industrial component only with the Industrial Revolution. The first recorded paint factory in America was established by Thomas Child in Boston in 1700. More than a century and a half later, in 1867, an entrepreneur named D.R. Averill from Ohio obtained a patent for the first ready-mixed paints in the United States. From the mid-1880s onward, paint factories began to appear one after another across the United States, particularly in densely populated areas and industrial centers. Mechanization and mechanization enabled large groups of entrepreneurs without expertise to enter the paint manufacturing business. However, the weight of the prepared paint made transportation expensive, so small producers in decentralized, separate markets dominated the sector until the mid-1900s.

The Industrial Revolution not only assisted the mechanization and professionalization of the paint industry but also created large and new markets for paints and coatings.

From the Model T Ford automobile manufactured on the assembly line to the latest television, almost every product required intensive use of paints and coatings for protection, extended service life and beautification. However, the intensive use of paint also brought with it suspicions about the health effects and potential risks of various paint components. Throughout the historical process, the paint industry responded urgently to environmental and health concerns by modifying the chemistry of its products to control risks. The paint industry rapidly adopts technologically safer alternatives. For example, prior to World War II, lead pigments used in some paints began to be abandoned. Industry consensus standards limiting the use of lead pigments extend back to the 1950s. The paint industry made specific efforts to produce lead-free residential paints. However, until 1978, when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission completely banned the use of lead in paints, paints used in residences contained trace amounts of lead. Contemporary paints and coatings are created through the formulation of numerous compounds to meet the diverse requirements of hundreds of thousands of different applications. "Paint" represents an extremely broad group of products, ranging from latex paints used by many consumers to beautify and protect their homes, to transparent coatings inside food containers, to complex multi-component chemical topcoats applied on the assembly line by automobile manufacturers. The history of powder coating began in the late 1940s and early 1950s. German scientist Dr. Erwin Gemmer developed the fluidized-bed process in which powder coatings are fixed by heat and obtained a patent in May 1953.

Between 1958 and 1965, all functional powder coating applications with a film thickness generally ranging from 150 microns to 500 microns were processed with the fluidized-bed application, with electrical insulation, corrosion and wear resistance being the primary focus.

During that period, coating materials varied; nylon 11, CAB, polyethylene, plasticized PVC, polyester, chlorinated polyether, as well as heat-curing epoxies were used extensively, such as nylon for boat accessories, PVC for dishwasher baskets, epoxy for thermal insulation, PVC for metal furniture, and CAB. Bosch was the institution that developed a basic type epoxy resin powder as a suitable electrical insulation material. The high film thickness and the development of electrostatic powder coating technology between 1962 and 1964 in the United States and its rapid popularization in both the United States and Europe reduced interest in the fluidized-bed application. Electrostatic powder coatings are generally applied using spray techniques. The basic characteristic of this technique is that the material to be coated with powder coating is grounded, while the powder coating particles are electrically charged. As a result, an electrostatic attraction is created between the powder coating and the material, which ensures that a sufficiently thick film is formed on the material surface and the powder coating adheres before melting and sticking to the material surface. Between 1966 and 1973, four basic types of thermoset resins currently in use were developed and introduced commercially. These are epoxy, epoxy polyester hybrid, polyurethane and polyester (TGIC). Subsequently, powder coating usage began to increase. For example, the number of powder coating facilities in Germany, which was only four in 1966, rose to 51 by 1970. From the early 1970s onward, with the rise of electrostatic powder coating, it would not be incorrect to say that it became the industry's preferred technique from the 1980s onward. Since the early 1980s, powder coatings have developed globally with continuous growth. This has been driven by continuous innovation in existing materials, the development and formulation of know-how, new techniques in application technology, and the development of new applications such as MDF and roll coating. Despite increasingly stringent regulatory restrictions by public authorities in recent years, particularly regarding environmental protection, the sector is expected to quickly adapt as criteria are renewed and to show continuous growth over the coming decade.

Sources:

• American Coatings Association - http://www.paint.org/aboutour-industry/history-of-paint/

• http://jcmetalfab.com/history%20of%20powder.htm

Prepared by - B. Serhat Cengiz