Hyundai Motor Company has unveiled a new painting technology that significantly reduces energy consumption and minimizes carbon emissions during the car painting process.
The car painting process is mainly completed in four steps: pre-treatment, primer, mid-coat and top-coat. In this process, the process of hardening the coating through high-temperature treatment is called the “curing process.”
Hyundai Motor Company announced on August 30 that it has developed a coating technology that uses a 20-minute topcoat curing process at a temperature of 90°C while maintaining the original coating quality. The curing process is to cure at 140℃ for 20 minutes.
Existing paints contain melamine and can only be cured at about 140°C or higher, but Hyundai’s newly developed paint uses isocyanate instead of melamine, which can be cured at 90°C or higher.
In fact, in the automobile production process, the painting process consumes the most energy (accounting for about 43%) and is also considered the process with the largest carbon emissions. If this spray-painting technology is commercialized, the company expects the industry’s carbon emissions and gas consumption to be reduced by 40% each.
In particular, if Hyundai adopts this technology in all its factories at home and abroad, it will be possible to reduce
16,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This is equivalent to planting 2 million pine trees or protecting 16 million square meters of forest area. Therefore, Hyundai Motor expects to contribute to improving environmental issues through this advancement.
Current high-temperature curing processes present challenges in integrating plastic bumpers and fenders made of different materials into the vehicle body. This leaves the supplier with the need to assemble these parts separately at the time of painting. With the introduction of low-temperature curing technology, this problem can be alleviated, providing simplified solutions for body color coordination, bumper integration and fender applications. Therefore, this technology is expected to be widely used.
To evaluate the feasibility of implementing this technology on a larger scale, Hyundai Motor Company tested the Genesis G80 model at its Ulsan plant. Continuous operation and monitoring will help determine the full application potential of this innovation.
A Hyundai Motor official commented: “The introduction of low-temperature curing technology marks an important milestone for Hyundai Motor Company as it goes beyond the concept of simply selling cars and instead includes the value created during the production phase of the car.” It aims to reduce Carbon-emitting technology developments bring Hyundai closer to its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2045.
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