One of the most effective and fastest ways to cure paint in an industrial environment is the method of treating the surface of the product with infrared radiation. For this, a special device is used - IR-drying. It is on its technical characteristics that the time for which the paint dries, and the quality of the paintwork in general, depends. What is infrared drying and what is remarkable, you can find out here and now.
Paint curing methods
At the moment, there are several ways in which industrial devices dry quickly after applying a certain layer of paint on them:
Convective (using hot air).
Thermoradiation (using infrared radiation).
Combined (a combination of the first two).
Among them, the most effective, of course, is IRradiation. Infrared drying (including IRT) allows you to process almost all types of paints and primers, including water-based and acrylic. At the same time, the device allows you to significantly accelerate the process of hardening of the primer or putty. The material, which is exposed to wave radiation, passes from a liquid state to a solid state, which is called hardening, in the language of specialists. Moreover, the whole process takes a maximum of 5 minutes.
Specifications
Infrared shortwave drying works as follows. After connecting the device to a power source (this is usually alternating electric current), the top layer of paint is first heated in the processed tool, which in turn completely prevents the solvent from escaping. This happens when short-wave infrared drying works. Long-wave devices transfer their energy using convection heating. Thus, the source that radiates heat to the surface of the paint and varnish mechanism is heated to a temperature of about 700-750 degrees Celsius, after which the heating level of the drying object itself increases to only 40 degrees. As a result, the device will have a cooling period of at least 15-20 minutes, while it will take up to 1-2 minutes for the layers of paint to cure.
By the way, the heating temperature in longwave devices is much higher than that of shortwave ones. Such infrared drying can heat up to 1450 degrees Celsius. Therefore, it increasesand heating the drying object. Due to this, most of the heat energy (up to 75 percent) emitted by the device does not fall on the upper, but on the lower contour of the paint, after which hardening occurs on the outside of the coating.
Where are they used?
Modern infrared drying is used in many sectors of the economy and industry, as it is able to quickly bring the surface of almost any material to the desired condition: MDF, decorative glassware, metal car bodies and much more. All this makes it indispensable in the industrial painting of products and mechanisms.
