The newly developed airless painter, the first of its kind in the world, achieves over 95% coating efficiency, the highest in the world from conventional efficiency of 60% to 70%.
Coating efficiency is a measure of the amount of paint sprayed versus the amount that actually sticks onto the painted surface.
Toyota expects the improved painting technique would reduce the group's CO2 emissions by about 7%. In addition, the collection device located at the bottom of the paint booth can be made smaller, enabling painting production lines to be more compact.
The new paint atomiser is part of Toyota's goal to achieve its "Plant Zero CO2 Emissions Challenge", one of the targets included in the Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050 announced in 2015. The paint atomiser would be introduced at its plants in Takaoka and Tsutsumi. It would also be installed at other plants, with Toyota also eyeing the licensing of the technology to other companies.
Conventional air paint atomiser sprayed paint using aerodynamic force, then paint the vehicle body with the atomised particles using an air paint atomiser. For this reason, paint particles are scattered by the air bouncing off the vehicle body, resulting in a coating efficiency of 60%-70%.
By comparison, the new airless paint atomiser uses electricity to sprayed the paint (electrostatic atomisation), and the statically charged particles coat in such a way that they gravitate towards the vehicle body (electrostatic painting).
Electrostatic atomisation and electrostatic painting technologies greatly reduce the number of atomised particles that scatter, thereby achieving a higher coating efficiency.
While electrostatic painting usually refers to painting on metal surfaces, it can also be used on plastic parts and wood. However, a primer must be applied first to make the parts conductive so that the electrostatic effect can work.
