Critical thicknesses of electrostatic powder coatings from inside

A simple electrostatic model is applied to the charge powder coating of a grounded conductor eventually covered by insulating layers. The electric field inside the powder coating and its evolution during the process are established with also the corresponding evolution in the dielectric layer and some practical consequences are also discussed. The thickness of the charged powder layer is limited by two types of process: a self-limiting process related to the vanishing field in the air gap and a field strength process occurring on one of the two sides of the coating–dielectric interface. Inside the powder coating, the electric field induces an increased electrostatic pressure on the powder grains at the substrate–coating interface and a vanishing pressure on the grains at the coating–air interface. This internal field is amplified into air bubbles and it may be responsible for the back ionisation process and of the formation of moon craters via the ionisation of the air molecules followed by the pressure exerted by the ions pushed in the direction of the free surface. For each of these limits, analytical expressions are established and they permit to identify the role of physical properties of the deposited powder (particle size and dielectric constant) as well as the role of thickness, structure, and dielectric constant of the insulating substrate. The present approach explains the difficulty in obtaining thick coatings on thick insulating substrates or thick coatings from the use of too fine powder grains. Finally, different behaviours as a function of the size of the deposited powder grains are deduced from the contribution of the electric field to the velocity of the particles sticking to the surface. Then and for the first time, the present contribution underlines the important role of the subsurface composition and the need to characterize the structure, dimension and dielectric constant of this subsurface for various applications concerning electrostatic spraying and powder painting of plastics and of insulating coatings on metallic work pieces.