INPRO Innovationsgesellschaft mbH Berlin

Today, plastic components such as bumpers and fender are frequently painted in the vehicle's colours. In addition to matching the tone, they must also be optically identical in appearance to the metal body.

An approach to solve this issue consists of letting plastic components run through the entire painting process of the metal bodies. Until few years ago, only few plastic materials could withstand the temperatures in the process which climb up to 200°C.

With the goal of advancing the use of plastics in automobile skins on a permanent basis, the INPRO partners decided at the beginning of this decade to work together to develop strategies for inline, offline and online painting of plastic components. Basic tests demonstrated the suitability of different plastics for electrostatic painting and examined the effect of conductive primers.

Conductive primers increase the conductivity of plastic surfaces, thus facilitating electrostatic painting. By using these, the visual characteristics of the surfaces can be modified in such a way that their appearance meets high vehicle production standards. In addition, conductive primers were shown to increase process security.

INPRO's work served as a foundation for testing in universities, research facilities and the partner companies. They contributed to the fact that today there are well-established solutions for the use of online painted plastics in automotive serial production.