SBIR-STTR Award

A novel process and formulation are proposed for pretreatment of plastic surfaces. The formulations are inexpensive, nontoxic and nonpolluting. When plastic Parts are immersed in the formulations, the surfaces of plastics will become receptive to waterborne paints. The adhesion of waterborne paints is expected to be better than that obtained with solventborne paints. Millions of gallons of solventborne paints are used to coat plastic parts used in automotive, business machine and other industries. The proposed process will eliminate the volatile organic compounds emitted by the solventborne paints.

Millions of gallons of solvent-borne paints are used to coat plastic parts used in the automotive industry. The solvent-borne paints emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In order to comply with the Clean Air Act, there is a need to make plastics paintable with water-borne paints. Under the Phase I study, JP Laboratories, Inc., demonstrated that when treated with certain formulations, automotive plastics such as polyurea and SMC (a sheet molding compound), become wettable with water and can be metallized. The wettable and plated plastics can be painted with water-borne paints. The formulations are inexpensive, nontoxic, and nonpolluting. The finish and adhesion of the paints were satisfactory. The formulations/ processes can eliminate VOC emitted by the solvent-borne paints. Under Phase II, the formulation processes will be optimized, scaled up and field tested.