The Advantages of a Powder Coat Finish Over Wet Paint Finishes for Industrial Storage and Handling Equipment

Powder coating is an excellent choice for painting industrial bins and silos. It is a durable, attractive and cost-effective solution, offering many advantages over wet paint finishes.

What Is Powder Coating?

Powder coating is the electrostatic application of a dry epoxy powder onto a previously prepared metal substrate. Using special powder guns, the process creates a high-voltage electrostatic charge between the gun and the item being painted. The electrostatic charge pulls the powder from the applicator onto the metal surface, completely covering the surface with a uniform layer of powder.After powder coating, we transfer the components into a curing oven, where the paint powder thermally bonds to the metal surface. Curing takes place in a large electronically controlled curing oven.

Depending on the application, we may apply more than one coat of powder. This improves corrosion and UV resistance.

How Powder Coating Differs From Wet Paint Finishes

Powder coating is a completely dry process, whereas wet spray painting uses solvents to transfer paint from the spray gun to the object being painted. Most solvents are toxic and flammable, so the spray-painting process takes place in a special booth. You need to apply several coats of wet paint to achieve the same finish and level of protection as you will get with powder coating.Wet spray painting is technically more difficult and requires highly skilled operators. After wet painting, components must be left to dry completely, a process that may take several hours while the solvents evaporate and the paint hardens.

A notable advantage of powder coating is that powder utilization is high at approximately 65% compared to only 35% for wet painting.

Both coating processes have their pros and cons. However, we consider powder coating to be a better solution for painting industrial bulk storage and handling equipment.

Benefits of a Powder Coating Finish Over Wet Paint for Industrial Material Storage and Handling Equipment

There are many benefits to buying powder coated storage tanks, hoppers, and bins. These include:

Durability

Epoxy powder coated finishes are thicker than wet paint finishes and, thanks to the thermal bonding process, are extremely durable with good impact, abrasion, and scratch resistance.

Quality

Powder coating produces an even coating with few defects and an absence of orange peel and drip marks.

Aesthetic

The color retention of powder coatings is good, and coatings have good chalking resistance.

Reduced friction

When used internally, powder coating has a lower coefficient of friction for improved handling of dry solids.

Corrosion resistance

The internal and external corrosion resistance of powder coated tanks is high thanks to the strong thermal bond between the metal substrate and the paint.

Food grade

We can supply food-grade powder coating finishes for stainless steel tanks.

Long-term savings

Although the initial cost of powder coating is higher than a wet paint finish, long-term costs are lower because powder coating is more durable and lasts longer than wet paint coatings.

Warranty

We offer a 5-year warranty on all our powder coatings.

Applications for Powder Coating in Material Handling

Here are some examples of where we use powder coating with SmoothWall tanks and bins and for our Bolt Together silos.

Multipurpose fertilizer silos

These silos are intended for the storage of bulk-density fertilizers. They have a fully welded construction with completely smooth interior walls. Silos have an interior and exterior powder coated finish.

Liquid hopper bins

Other applications include SmoothWall heavy-duty liquid silos for the storage of liquid fertilizers, feed supplements and other liquid products. The interiors are coated with two coats of epoxy powder, while the exterior surfaces have a zinc undercoat and a special Meridian finish powder coat.

SmoothWall Ammonium Nitrate Silos

Manufactured from high-quality steel, our SmoothWall silos are ideal for the storage of ammonium nitrate and chemical compounds for mining and other industrial applications. These units have a high-quality external powder coat finish.

Frac Sand Silos

Our SmoothWall sand silos have a seamless interior and a heavy-duty design suitable for high-density frac sand products. They come with a premium-quality powder coated finish. Alternatives include large capacity powder coated Bolt Together silos for assembly in the field.