In today’s industrial landscape, powder coating is one of the most popular methods for finishing and protecting a wide range of products across dozens of industries. Still, the process itself is relatively new. How long has powder coating been around, and when was powder coating invented? Check out this brief powder coating historical timeline to find out.
The Early Days of Powder Coating
About 80 years ago, in the early 1940s, the first form of powder coating took shape. At this time, manufacturers flame-sprayed macromolecules of organic polymers onto metallic bases. The flame-sprayer melted the materials as they were applied to the surface, creating a thermal coating.
A decade later, in the mid-1950s, a German scientist named Dr. Edwin Gemmer considered using air to fluidize powdered materials. This practice allowed them to behave like a liquid, fully enveloping and coating objects. Gemmer developed and patented his fluidized-bed process for thermosetting powder, and this methodology remained popular through 1965.
At this time, powder coating was most common for applications that required electrical insulation and corrosion resistance. These early powder coating techniques produced inconsistent coating thicknesses. That drawback meant two identical items could pass through the same fluidized bed and come out with coatings of different thicknesses. These techniques also required specific equipment that was rarely available or accessible to manufacturers in other countries.
