Making the world a brighter place: continued developments in powder materials and powder application techniques offer coaters a wide variety of metallic finishes

From cars to office furniture-and of course consumer electronics such as computers, stereos, televisions, cell phones and DVD players-the metallic look is hot, and its popularity continues to grow. Manufacturers of more commercial and consumer products every day are choosing gold, silver and bronze looking finishes to enhance and accentuate their product in the marketplace. Some believe that this trend started in the US automotive industry. With the trend now at a global level, a recent survey indicated that silver is apparently the most popular color for cars and trucks in Asia, Europe and North America. So, the obvious question is whether metallic finishes are just the latest trend, or have they become yet another option in the wide variety of colors offered by today's paint manufacturers? Although the production of metallic pigments has been around for some time-with substantial developmental work already taken place in the printer ink and liquid paint industries-many powder paint manufacturers see the trend not only continuing, but getting stronger, and continue to add various gold, silver and bronze-like powders to their already wide selection of colors.