Radiation-curable smart coatings

Abstract

A quickly expanding process within the paint and coatings industry is the implementation of ultraviolet (UV) to cure or dry coating on various products (i.e., wood, metal, or plastic). Increasingly used in place of replacing conventional high-heat processing techniques, UV-cured coating produces materials with improved properties, lowers the operational costs (e.g., natural gas costs for bake curing), and reduces the overall environmental impact. This chapter describes this new class of smart UV-curable coatings. In the first part, UV-curable and smart coatings are introduced. In the following sections, smart coating properties such as self-cleaning, selfhealing, antifog, and antibacterial are described separately and synthesize routes for smart coatings. Finally, this chapter will highlight different types of smart UV-curable coatings for various engineering applications.