Infrared Curing of Coatings

[gigondaz]

Some detailing shops who use coating systems on their customers' cars, are utilising IR lights to cure/harden the coating. This is often used by high-end detailing shops in countries where the weather is often rainy. The lights are mounted on the ceiling, walls and even on movable stands.



I know it's common for IR to be used by re-sprayers.

But is it applicable to curing paint coatings, synthetic sealants?



I hv used certain coatings systems such as Matrix Micro Coatings before, and this IR thingy has prompted the following questions:



1. Can IR lights be used to accelerate curing of synthetic sealants such as Klasse, Zaino, Rejex etc? Or is it UV light, instead?



2. Do fellow pros in this forum use any form of IR or UV curing?



3.what's the diff between IR and UV light curing?



Would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks.

 

[the other pc]

IR lights cause the surface to heat up. So they'll accelerate any reaction that's temperature sensitive. Most car care products do react faster as the temperature goes up, even if it's simply from faster evaporation of volatile carriers.



UV radiation is a form of "ionizing radiation" and can directly change atoms or molecules by removing electrons. You can sort of the think of it as the light itself directly causing a chemical reaction (as opposed the IR light, which raises the temperature, allowing whatever reactions are already going on to happen faster).





pc.