Advances in exterior wood coatings

Citation

Bean, J. (1998), "Advances in exterior wood coatings", Pigment & Resin Technology, Vol. 27 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/prt.1998.12927caa.003

Advances in exterior wood coatings

Advances in exterior wood coatings

Keywords Coatings, Wood

Despite competition from plastics and other materials, wood remains an important structural and decorative material with an advantageous balance of strength and modulus against cost. It is also a valuable renewable resource. Wood coating has a long and well-recorded history but circumstances continually change. Today's coatings must meet more stringent environmental and legislative demands. Resultant technologies have moved away from solution polymers towards dispersion and hybrid systems, mostly carried in water. Alternative choices are provided by high solids, rad-cure and powder coatings. At the same time operational practice in both joinery and furniture factories is changing as is the supply of commercially available timber species.

Moreover, industrial woodcoating technology has to choose between abatement techniques and compliant coatings, which differ radically from traditional technologies. Industrial joinery, especially windows, has been under tremendous pressure from uPVC. Although much progress has been made in understanding design features to increase the service life of windows, many areas of controversy remain. These include the dynamics of moisture control, particularly where new low-VOC coating technologies have been introduced. This has engendered a considerable amount of new research.

An outcome of all these developments is that the Paint Research Association has joined forces with a number of other European research bodies to organise a major conference to be held in Brussels, 19-21 October 1998. It will be called: "Advances in exterior wood coatings and CEN standardisation". The latter will highlight the second theme of the conference, which will cover the progress in European and International Standardisation. It will also provide a forum for presentation of the latest research results from a number of major European projects that have now reached completion.

For further details contact Janet Saraty, PRA, 8 Waldegrave Road, Teddington, Middlesex TW11 8LD. Tel: +44 (0)181 977 4427; Fax: +44 (0)181 943 4705.