Archive for category: Case Study

Typically, the effectiveness of the working (face) surfaces of compression (and all other types as well) receive the most attention as their condition can be a reflection of declining through-put, rising scrap rates and/or other KPI’s.

When refinishing those surfaces for our clients, we are more likely so see serious corrosion within the water-cooling jacket is trending the tooling towards functional obsolescence well before the face side.  

The primary corrosion-Inducing factors causing corrosion to occur are:

• Dissolved Oxygen (O₂)
• pH Levels: Water pH significantly affects corrosion rates.
  • Low pH (acidic, typically below ~6.5–7) promotes general acid attack and higher corrosion rates on steels and other metals.
  • High pH (alkaline, often above ~8.5) can be protective for some steels by encouraging passive films or carbonate scaling, but it increases risks for aluminum (e.g., exfoliation or stress corrosion cracking) and can lead to issues like white rust on galvanized components.
  • Optimal ranges (often 8–9 or higher with inhibitors) are targeted in treated systems to balance corrosion control and scale prevention.
• Chlorides and Other Aggressive Ions
• Microbiologically Induced Corrosion (MIC)
• Dissolved Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)
• Temperature and Thermal Cycling
• Stagnation and Low Flow
• Galvanic Corrosion
• Abrasion/Erosion-Corrosion
• Scale and Deposits
• Other Water Chemistry Issues
• How the tooling is pulled out of service and stored if the remaining stagnant moisture isn’t removed/treated.

Ultimately, it’s usually a combination of these factors that causes rapid pitting and corrosion… easily within weeks to a few months of operation.

Industry preventative solutions for this corrosion can include the use of corrosion inhibitors additives, pH adjustment, biocides, filtration, regular cleaning (and downtime), proper drying during storage, and more expensive tooling materials (e.g., stainless or plated steels). 

ECS offers a solution that is not only less expensive than the costs of most of these options, but statistically offers the highest corrosion protection including all of the steel platings, galvanizing, and other legacy options.

This solution is a 2-coat system that provides the following:

• Adhesion and Compatibility: Our coatings create chemical bonds that produce outstanding adhesion properties. Without excellent adhesion to the surfaces, it doesn’t matter how good the coating finish is…
• Hydrophobicity and Water Repellency. Hydrophobic surfaces reduce exposure to dissolved oxygen, chlorides, and low/high pH conditions while also hindering biofilm formation that leads to microbiologically induced corrosion (MIC)—a frequent culprit in mold failures. In cases where MIC/chloride-induced pitting is prevalent, hydrophobicity alone will significantly limit microbial attachment and ion ingress.
• Barrier and Chemical Resistance: The 2-coat system inherently ensures there are no pinholes vs. 1-coat alternatives. It also forms dense, and highly effective inorganic-organic hybrid barrier capable of withstanding the corrosive ions (e.g., chlorides, CO₂) and aggressive water chemistries.
• Hardness and Abrasion Resistance: Our coatings offer a 3-dimensional molecular structure that results in high hardness without the typical brittleness that comes with hard materials. This hardness results in a strong deterrence to the abrasion of the constant circulation of the water/coolants.

What you can expect:

• Lifespan Extension:
  • Our coatings consistently produce a minimum of 2–3x’s better corrosion resistance compared to traditionally protected surfaces.
  • ASTM B117 salt spray resistance will exceeding 3000 hours (vs. ~1000 hours for hot-dip galvanizing),
  • Typically, this means a 50–200% increase in operational life.
  • Reduced downtime and maintenance costs.
• Scientific studies show that our coatings reduce corrosion rates by 80–95% in aqueous environments.

For more information on ECS’s comprehensive tooling performance and protective coating options, email us at Sales@nullecs-ww.com or call us at 816-381-9901.

We appreciate seeing some of our business going down (on) the toilet (bowl). One of our quality-minded aerospace clients specifies Chemours’ “Teflon™ PFA” for their aircraft bathrooms so customers don’t have to see what the previous passenger “left behind”.

Toilets on aircraft must rely on very little water and a lot of air suction to flush (stuff) down the drain. Coating toilets with Teflon’s non-stick properties requires less water to send the (stuff) down the drain. Also, because most aircraft toilets are made with metal, Teflon™ provides excellent corrosion-resistance as well.

ECS works in a wide range of markets to reduce the costs (and in this case the “waste”) caused by surface friction. Whether your substrate is metal or a temperature sensitive substrate such as plastic, we have a wide range of coatings that will reduce the energy, costs and down-time tied to surface friction.

Call us at 816.381.9900, or email us at info@nullecs-ww.com, or visit our website at www.ecs-ww.com.

By Jim Stuelke, CEO of Extreme Coating Solutions

Here is an interesting proposition… “If your company re-coats the non-stick coatings on your molds and/or tooling to extend their operating life, walnut shells might significantly add to your profitability.”

Re-coating Production Molds

Manufacturers who re-coat their “non-stick” production molds and tooling when the coating wears off through use (especially those made from aluminum) know the original dimensional contours of the molds. They also know their investment in the mold/tooling is being eroded each time the old non-stick coating is removed. Ultimately, this can cause the mold to become dimensionally out of spec and then they must be replaced. And that requires yet another capital investment.

This issue can occur when molds are periodically re-coated with non-stick coatings (such as Teflon™ and Xylan^® and the old coating is removed or stripped off with the same type of media (such as aluminum oxide) that’s used to “prep” the molds for coating.

Molds with intricate detailed areas or deeper cavities are very prone to this “erosion” as these areas can also be the most difficult areas to remove the old non-stick coating. Consequently, an operator working on removing the coating from those areas is removing even more metal.

Food Service Case Study

Earlier this year, one of our food-service clients asked us to come up with a solution to strip the Teflon™ finishes off their aluminum parts in a manner that would minimize the erosion of their molds.

Here were the options we considered:

• Chemical Stripping – Maybe on some coatings, but chemical resistance is one of the hallmark performance properties Teflon™ was engineered to resist.
• Pyrolysis – The high temperatures used in the Pyrolysis process would be too high for the aluminum molds.
• Other blast medias – Considered and tested were dry ice, plastic, walnut shell, and corn cob blast medias.

The most effective was the walnut shell media which did the best job of stripping the Teflon™ without damaging the aluminum.

By the end of September 2020, we will have completed the installation of a blast room dedicated to blasting with walnut media. We will be working with our clients to quantify how much this reduces the erosion. We’ll 3D scan specific parts to measure for erosion as we process their parts going forward. Based on the preliminary analysis, this new process could result in their molds lasting twice as long. This will significantly reduce their operating costs.

Walnut blasting is well-suited for cleaning composite molds and tools made of aluminum, INVAR, and other materials. It’s also great for cleaning any other production parts where their functional service lives can be extended by removing the worn finish, cleaning and re-coating so that its non-stick properties are rejuvenated.

For more information, please contact Jim Stuelke or call at 816.381.9901.

Project Porcupine Roller

Thickness variance of no more than a “hair”? Okay, the coating spec didn’t actually say that, but the analogy is accurate. The coating specification called for an average coating thickness of 2 mils; but no less than 1.5 and no more than 3 mils. “Mil” which is terminology used mostly in the U.S., is equal to 1/1000th of an inch, or 25.4µ (microns). Two mils is also the average diameter of a human hair.

For this commercial dough docker roller, the downside of not meeting this spec was if the coating went on too thick, the coating can fracture during the curing process. And if that isn’t visually evident, it can still weaken the coating in those areas, leading to delamination. Conversely if the coating is too thin, then the release properties needed for this roller to poke and release the dough as it rolls over it will likely under perform, resulting in a lot of wasted scrap and downtime for our baking client.

For the coating applicator, the challenge is to use application techniques which allow the coating to build up thickness along the roller at the base of the “spines” without building up more than 2 mils on the spines themselves.

We’ve been handling challenging projects like this one for a long time. Our team has been together for over 28 years. Our lead “applicator” is also my partner, Bun Than Luy; who has been an owner in ECS since 1997. For Bun and the rest of our team, these years of experience serve us well when orders like Project Porcupine Roller show up, and the coating spec says we can’t be off by even a “hair”.