BASF Advancing E-Coat Applications

The BASF Coating research facility includes a 2,000-liter dip tank and a chamber oven, shown here, to bake the parts in.

Photo Credit: BASF

BASF Coatings has opened a new 15-million € electrocoat research center at its headquarters in Münster-Hiltrup, Germany.

According to Frank Naber, head of the Automotive OEM Coatings Solutions EMEA business unit at BASF Coatings, “In our new e-coat research center, we can simulate our customers’ processes and paint systems. We can coat pre-treated original parts of our customers under the conditions of their individual paint lines in a 2,000-liter dip tank and bake them in a chamber oven. These parts can be doors, fenders or hoods.”

However, one thing struck us as odd about the announcement.

According to the company, “The center will mainly be used for the CathoGuard 800 e-coat technology, which has already been applied to more than 100 million vehicles worldwide.”

Wouldn’t it be the case with that many applications they would know everything they need to know about CathoGuard 800 such that a research center wouldn’t be required?

So we asked.

And according to a company spokesperson, “Every paint line of each OEM is different, therefore the technology needs to be adjusted and tailormade to fit the customers’ demand and specifications. In the new research center, we are able to reproduce those specifications and provide our customers with the respective CathoGuard formulation.”

What’s more, they are using the facility to develop new e-coats, such as the biomass-balanced CathoGuard 800 Resource that BMW put into production in two plants (Leipzig, Germany and Rosslyn, South Africa) earlier this year.