The Environmentally Responsible Choice
What's in a superior performance coating?
Coatings are an important part of exterior design. They offer protection to the underlying substrate or building material, but also add to the design itself through color, texture, or special effects. Exterior coatings are also designed to perform; high quality resins, pigments and other ingredients combine to deliver important technical elements such as color and gloss retention, corrosion protection and more. Fluoropolymer coatings are the ultimate in exterior performance.
So what’s in a Fluoropolymer coating?
Organic coatings are made of polymers. Traditionally, polyesters and acrylic polyurethanes are the workhorse chemistries for exterior protection. When a project requires superior performance and protection, a different class of polymers is used. Enter Fluoropolymer technology. Fluoropolymers are polymers than contain fluorine, typically a carbon- fluorine bond.
Why is this chemistry used for superior performance?
It all goes back to high school chemistry. Fluorine is the most electronegative element which means it doesn’t like any other elements, including itself. A carbon- fluorine bond is consequently very strong, so strong that terrestrial UV light can’t break it. Polymers containing substantial amounts of C-F result in tough coatings that resist the elements. Within the fluoropolymer family are two sub-types: PVDF and FEVE. Polyvinylidene fluoride is traditionally used in a liquid, solvent- based form. It often is specified as a 70/30 blend of PVDF and acrylic for AAMA 2605 projects and has decades of proven weathering performance. Like PVDF, FEVE or fluoroethylene vinyl ether, also has decades of superior weathering performance, surpassing the AAMA 2605 performance requirements but without the solvents. It has been used on the exterior of buildings, for example curtain wall, and infrastructure across the globe. FEVE based fluoropolymer powders are the ultimate in color, performance, protection AND improved sustainability.
Why are FEVE Fluoropolymers a more environmentally responsible choice?
While FEVE can be used in a liquid form, the no solvent, negligible VOC, powder form is most extensively used in the architectural market. FEVE powder coatings offer the designer a reduction in embodied carbon and overall carbon footprint when compared to solvent- based PVDF coatings. What's more, like many powders, the ability to reclaim, reuse or recycle is available, toxic waste (that becomes toxic landfill) is not created during application (unlike liquid alternatives) and there is a choice of pretreatment options, FEVE- based architectural powder coatings offer design professionals exterior protection that is both superior performance and more sustainable and a wide range of colors and effects, including metallics and textures, Choosing FEVE based powder coatings, like IFS 500FP, delivers sustainable design and protection in one hard working, superior performance coating.