Automotive Coatings – Creating Excitement with Effect Pigments

By Cynthia Challener

Regardless of the end-use application, special effect pigments provide a differen­tiated appearance. That is certainly true in the automotive industry, where they are used in coatings applied to both the interior and exterior of vehicles. Shifts in customer color and appearance preferences drive the use and development of effect pigments, as do develop­ments in coatings technology and application processes. High sparkle finishes and intensely chromatic colors on car bodies and mirror-like finishes on interior components are increasing in popularity and driving the use of glass flakes, colored aluminums, and aluminum pig­ments with a much finer particle size. Pigments also need to provide the same appearance in coatings with thinner and/or fewer layers while exhibiting increased durability.