The home appliance industry is no stranger to powder coatings. We can see powder coatings on refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, range hoods, cabinet kitchen appliances, televisions and many other home appliances. Home appliances are even the first to respond to the national environmental protection call and start the "paint to powder" process of powder coating application field. However, this forerunner's understanding and application of powder coatings seems to remain in the past.
So, where will the future road of powder coating + home appliances lead? In the exchange with powder coating companies, the most heard sentence of the "Electrical Appliance" reporter is: "Powder coatings can bring more possibilities for home appliances, and we hope to explore these possibilities with more home appliance companies in 2022." ”
More than just plain
White goods, black home appliances, such a title with historical traces allows people to distinguish the category of the product through color, but also people's impression of the appearance of home appliances is rigidly locked on a certain color. When powder coatings first met the home appliance industry, white was still the main theme of the color matching of many home appliances. Therefore, the replacement of powder coatings for paint in the surface treatment of home appliances also began with white.
Since then, in the context of the continuous upgrading of consumer demand, the home appliance industry has begun to make a breakthrough from the appearance, and the explosion of the silver washing machine has created a marketing story. Although the application of powder coatings in the field of home appliances also conforms to the appearance trend of the whole machine and opens up the territory in color, until today, the largest proportion of applications is still the original white base powder.
In fact, the expressiveness of powder coatings in color has long since broken through the confines of white and developed a very rich appearance solution for different application areas to choose from.
Metallic color, with its unique texture and color expression, has won the favor of many home appliances. "Compared with plain color powder, the color chain of metal powder is more complex, and different particle sizes will affect the final presentation effect. This property allows metal powders to exhibit a richer and more diverse surface appearance. Zhou Bowen, product manager of Tiger Surface Technology New Materials (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., told the "Electrical Appliance" reporter, "Taking tiger's 'pole' theme as an example, it can be called an encyclopedia of silver products, bringing together all the silver effects that TIGER can achieve for customers - some warm and soft, some cold and noble, and some enthusiastic and dazzling." The reason why such a changeable 'silver' can be achieved is precisely due to the change of aluminum powder particles from fine to coarse. ”
Nowadays, metal powder has been widely used in washing machines, refrigerators, electric water heaters, range hoods and other high-end areas of home appliances, and is an ideal alternative to metal paint and electroplating. Qianjiang Powder is focusing on expanding the application field of home appliances, and has launched metal powder products such as the Magic Metal Series and the Soft Skin Metal Series. Zhu Yi, the company's brand manager, said that color is a direct tool to stimulate consumers' emotional appeals, telling the story of the owner in a silent design language. "Industry experts generally believe that color design can increase the added value of 15% to 30% on the basis of not increasing product costs." To this end, many home appliance companies have begun to study the color trend of home appliances. The same is true for powder coating colors, in addition to black and white gray, more and more light and luxurious elegant colors are applied. He said.
As a leader in the powder metal industry, TIGER strives to achieve the ultimate in color development of metal powder. The "Yun" theme metallic color that won the 2021 Golden Nail Award is to fuse the unique metal effect of the popular color and metal powder to create a more natural, simple and gentle feeling, making the interior look more warm.
Zhou Bowen said that due to the repeated epidemics, people have returned to home life, which has put forward higher requirements for the home environment, which has naturally become one of the main themes in the design field in recent years. As an important component of the home environment, many companies are also seeking to connect the living room with nature through the application of natural colors or materials, such as the introduction of more green, the application of natural materials such as rock slabs.
It's not just basic protection
As a surface coating process, powder coatings provide environmentally friendly and excellent protection for the surface of metal substrates used in home appliances. However, the application of a large number of base powders also makes the home appliance industry's cognition of powder coating capabilities limited to basic protection. In fact, after years of development, powder coatings can not only provide basic protection for metal substrates, but also give more connotations such as function and aesthetics to home appliances.
From the perspective of functionality, powder coatings have a broad application space in terms of high resistance, self-cleaning, and antibacterial.
The pandemic has greatly increased people's concerns about health. As a product closely related to people's lives, the home appliance industry has also set off a health trend, antibacterial, sterilization, equipment self-cleaning is developing into the standard of some products. For these performance needs, powder coating companies can provide many high-quality solutions. Taking antibacterial powder as an example, home appliances are usually products that are used frequently and shared by many people, and the use of antibacterial powder on the surface of home appliances can effectively block the spread of bacteria and viruses and protect the health of the family. According to Zhu Yi, the self-cleaning powder has the function of anti-staining and self-cleaning, which can not only keep the surface of household appliances young for a long time, but also not easy to stick to stains, and solve the pain points that the surface of home appliances is easy to dirty and difficult to clean.
At the same time, the expansion of the functions of powder coatings in terms of high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance, weather resistance, etc., can also provide higher-level protection for home appliances. Among them, high-temperature resistant powder has been applied in the field of home appliances in cooktops, electric ovens, electric heaters and other products. A person in charge of a powder company who did not want to be named told the "Electrical Appliance" reporter that high-weather-resistant powder coating products are currently more used in the fields of building materials and automobiles, and the use environment of home appliances is mainly indoors, and the performance requirements in this regard are not high. "However, we have also observed that some home appliance brands have begun to pay attention to the appearance of air-conditioning outdoor units in the creation of high-end products, using a design scheme consistent with indoor units; some companies are developing outdoor products, such as gas wall hanging furnaces." These new developments deserve attention. ”
In the field of home appliances, powder coatings are more often used in the coating treatment of "non-A-side" such as the side panels of ice washing products and the interior of cabinet products. Nowadays, powder coatings are more likely to get rid of this embarrassing situation and become the "façade responsibility" for the appearance of home appliances.
Not only the protective function, but also the shape of the product appearance, powder coatings are also promising.
Qianjiang Powder developed a hand-sensitive volcanic rock powder coating, which can achieve the three-dimensional stone layer effect of rock texture and feel. According to Zhu Yi, at present, the home appliance industry is popular in the natural environmental protection theme wind, and many high-end household appliances began to use volcanic rock and other rock series textures when designing products CMF, but the current common treatment method is high cost and complex process. Qianjiang's powder coating product only needs to be painted and baked, supplemented by a thermal transfer printing process, which can achieve the desired effect, help customers achieve high-end decorative effects at a lower cost, and improve the market competitiveness of products.
In addition to the rocky texture and supplemented by thermal transfer technology, the powder coating also creates a natural wood grain effect. TIGER has applied this appearance solution to furniture, building materials and other fields, and has been widely recognized by customers in the industry. Zhou Bowen said frankly: "Powder coatings can also show more effects when combined with other processes, such as imitation rock, wood grain, electroplating, etc. We hope to be able to lead home appliance customers out of the inertial thinking of 'powder is bargain' and bring them more design ideas and solutions." ”
Work together to explore more possibilities
For the powder coatings industry, home appliances are a very important application area. According to the "2020 China Powder Coating Industry Annual Report", in 2020, the share of powder coatings for home appliances in the thermoset powder coating market was 18.3%, which is the third largest application field after building materials and general industry. However, at the same time, home appliances are also the lowest average price in the major application areas of powder coatings, only 17.2 yuan / kg.
A person in charge of a powder coating company who did not want to be named said frankly: "Our current home appliance customers are foreign brands, similar to our situation, many international giants with advanced technology in powder coatings are shrinking the powder coating business of home appliances." Home appliance companies have been successful in controlling costs, but too low profits have forced us to leave. He told the "Electrical Appliance" reporter that when visiting home appliance customers, often before they have time to open the new product information, they are "can the price be lower" inquiry to extinguish the enthusiasm for promoting new products.
Staying in the application of entry-level products is definitely not what powder coating companies want. In the interview, the heads of the interviewed companies expressed their common expectations - to explore more possibilities of powder coatings with home appliance companies. "Consumers of different eras prefer different things. We hope to work with B-end customers to better combine powder coatings with home appliances to meet the needs of different types of consumers for home appliances. ”
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