Pearl Pigment for Automotive

What is Pearl Paint?

According to the principle of natural pearls, scientists add inorganic oxides such as titanium dioxide or iron oxide with different thicknesses to the mica flakes, and then make thin flakes to add paint. Due to the different thickness and refractive index of each layer, when the light is reflected and refracted, the ordinary white light is decomposed into rainbow-like light, which can produce a rainbow effect similar to pearls, which is what we call pearl paint.

In 1997, DuPont successfully launched a high-tech color-changing pearl paint, which is used in the semiconductor synthesis process. It superimposes 5 layers of transparent metal oxides, so that one layer of paint will turn red, blue, green, purple, and purple at different angles. Orange and other colors, this high-tech color-changing pearl paint has caused another revolution in automotive paint.

The role of pearlescent pigments in coatings

Pearlescent pigments are flake-like and have a high refractive index. Like metallic glitter pigments, they are evenly arranged in the coating to reflect incident light, but the reflectivity is relatively low. Part of the incident light passes through pearlescent pigments, and the visual perception is not very bright Very soft.

Pearlescent pigments produce various colors through the light interference effect of the titanium dioxide film coated with mica flakes. When the titanium dioxide-coated film is very thin, white pearlescence is produced; increasing its thickness, the refractive colors of gold, red, blue and green can be obtained in turn.

The difference between pearl paint and metallic paint

Pearl paint is a special variety of metallic glitter paint, which is obviously different from general metallic paint in terms of decorative particularity and final decorative effect. Pearl paint has the following characteristics.

①, has a delicate and soft satin-like pearl luster effect

During the construction of automobile pearl paint, the pearlescent pigment flakes can obtain regular directional arrangement in the coating film, and the incident light irradiates the surface of the pearl paint, which can show a delicate and soft pearl luster similar to silk and soft satin, which is the so-called pearl effect. Pearlescent effect is a unique feature of pearl paint, and it is one of the features that distinguish it from general metallic paint.

②. It has bright and flickering metal flash effect, but the coating film lacks three-dimensional space texture. Using the pearlescent pigments that have just been colored, not only can a series of metallic pearlescent paints of different colors be obtained, but also the pearlescent pigments always reflect only part of the incident light, and transmit most of the incident light to the next layer of wafers, repeating The reflection and transmission of primary light make the fullness of the coating film better than that of ordinary metallic paints.

③ It has a color flashing effect from the viewing angle that changes with the viewing angle.

The transparent flake pearlescent pigment is distributed in parallel in the paint, the incident light is refracted and reflected multiple times in the coating, and the interference phenomenon of light occurs between the various parallel reflected lights, which varies with the viewing angle of the observer. The phenomenon of seeing different colors is called goniochromatic effect or polychromatic effect.

The normal orientation is in a parallel state on the surface of the substrate and the coating film, and the highest surface brightness and maximum saturation can be observed at 90°; while at 45°, due to the reduction in the amount of reflected light entering the eye, it can be observed. A darkening of the color was observed.

④ Has a color transfer effect that changes with curvature

The continuous coating film made of interference color mica titanium pearlescent pigment can display two completely different colors at the same time, and this color change is called the color transfer effect.

The color of the car pearl paint formulated with the interference color mica titanium pearlescent pigment will change with the curvature of the car body, that is, from a primary color to its complementary color. It is precisely because of its color transfer effect that it is possible to design different paint formulations according to different needs to create various fantastic pearl car paints.