Vitreous Enamel: Part Two
Porcelain (vitreous) enamel technologies have continued to develop and with the rise of the no nickel, no pickle ground coating process has meant a more environmentally sound and financially viable situation altogether.
Due to basic visual preference for a material to look like steel, enameling techniques have even been developed to give the desired appearance of stainless steel through using metallic pigments in a low temperature enamel.
Porcelain (Vitreous) enamels continue to be a remarkable coating for steel and other metals. During the last several decades, new formulations and methods have been provided for commercially economical and desirable enameled products. No nickel-no pickle ground coatings have provided means of meeting key ecological directives and at the same time improving the efficiency of enameling operations without adversely affecting the volume of production.
Electrostatic powders and electrophoretic application have additionally remade the industry while reducing material, labour and production costs. Today, these new materials and processes are the norm and we look forward to new innovations.
In the paper of Fedak D. and Baldwin C. the comparison of the properties of porcelain enamel and stainless steel used in appliance production is shown. The comparison testing showed that porcelain enamel is harder to scratch, more stain-resistant, more heat-resistant, and easier to clean than stainless steel and overall results show that stainless steel is functionally inferior to porcelain enamel.
Since the consumer preference is for the color, porcelain enamels with the appearance of stainless steel have been developed. Using metallic pigments, a low-temperature enamel was invented that fires at about 1,000°F (538°C) on aluminum or aluminized steel. A high-temperature steel cover coat firing about 1,500°F (816°C) has also been developed with similar properties to the cover coats tested.
As an illustration of this, Table 1 shows the comparison of two main types of solar storage tanks used for solar hot water systems, stainless steel and vitreous enamel (glass-lined) tanks.
Table 1: The comparison of two main types of solar storage tanks