How to Prevent Scratching and Fingerprints on Appliance Surfaces?
Author：
Chuangzhi Coating
In the home appliance consumer market, product appearance texture has become one of the core factors affecting user choices. However, appliance surfaces such as refrigerator doors, washing machine panels, and microwave oven housings are prone to scratches due to collisions and friction in daily use. At the same time, fingerprints left by finger contact can damage surface smoothness and increase cleaning costs. As a manufacturer specializing in the research and development of coating line equipment, we solve the problems of scratches and fingerprints on appliance surfaces from the source through innovative coating technology and intelligent coating solutions, providing home appliance enterprises with surface treatment solutions that combine durability and aesthetics.
1. Scratch-Resistant Coating Technology: Enhancing Surface Hardness and Wear Resistance
Scratches on appliance surfaces essentially result from material loss of coatings or substrates under external friction. The core of protection lies in improving surface hardness and wear resistance. We have developed exclusive scratch-resistant coating systems for different appliance materials (stainless steel, ABS plastic, aluminum alloy):
Stainless steel appliances (such as refrigerator door frames)：Adoptnano-ceramic composite coatings. Through the electrostatic spraying process of the coating line, zirconia ceramic particles are evenly embedded in the organic coating, increasing the surface pencil hardness to above 3H (traditional coatings are mostly 2B-2H). It can withstand 5000 friction cycles without obvious scratches in the Taber abrasion test (500g load).
Plastic appliances (such as washing machine control panels)：Applysilicone-modified polyester coatings. Cross-linking reaction is achieved through infrared curing technology, balancing coating flexibility and hardness. It avoids embrittlement and cracking in low-temperature environments and can resist scratches from hard objects such as keys and coins. No coating peeling occurs in the ball drop impact test (1kg steel ball falling from 1m height).
Aluminum alloy appliances (such as microwave oven housings)：Useanodizing + sealing process. The thickness of the oxide film (8-12μm) is controlled by the automated coating line, and nano-level sealing treatment is performed. The surface wear resistance is 3 times higher than that of traditional painting, while retaining the metal texture.
2. Anti-Fingerprint Coating Process: Building Oil and Water Repellent Surfaces
The main reason for fingerprint residue is the irregular adhesion of oils and sweat secreted by the skin on the surface, which is more obvious on bright surface appliances such as black and silver ones. Our solution builds an "oil and water repellent" interface throughlow surface energy coating technologyto reduce fingerprint adhesion physically:
Coating formulation design：Fluorocarbon resin or siloxane additives are added to the primer or topcoat. The directional arrangement of additives on the coating surface is controlled by precision coating equipment, making the surface contact angle reach more than 105° (contact angle > 90° indicates hydrophobicity). Oils are difficult to adhere and can be removed with a light wipe.
Micro-nano structure construction：For high-end appliances, adual-coating systemis adopted - the bottom layer is a scratch-resistant primer, and the surface layer is a nano-level anti-fingerprint coating. Through the multi-gun synchronous spraying technology of the coating line, micron-level concave-convex structures are formed on the surface, reducing the contact area between fingerprints and the surface, achieving an "easy-to-clean" effect.
Process stability control：The performance of anti-fingerprint coatings is extremely sensitive to thickness (usually needs to be controlled at 3-5μm). Excessive thickness is prone to shrinkage cavities, while insufficient thickness leads to attenuation of anti-fingerprint effects. Our intelligent coating line uses laser thickness gauges for real-time feedback, automatically adjusting spray gun flow and moving speed to ensure coating thickness deviation ≤ ±0.5μm and batch stability above 99%.
3. Integrated Coating Line Solution: Ensuring Process Implementation
High-quality scratch and fingerprint resistance cannot be achieved without stable and efficient coating line equipment support. We provide home appliance enterprises withturnkey solutionsfrom pretreatment to curing:
Pretreatment stage：For stainless steel surfaces, electrolytic polishing modules are used to remove oxide layers; for plastic surfaces, plasma treatment is applied to improve coating adhesion, ensuring the bonding force between scratch-resistant coatings and substrates reaches above 5N/cm (cross-cut test).
Spraying stage：Equipped with 6-axis 联动 robotic arms, combined with visual positioning systems, it accurately adapts to curved surfaces and corner structures of different appliances (such as refrigerator door handle grooves), avoiding local degradation of scratch/fingerprint resistance caused by uneven spraying.
Curing stage：Curing processes are matched according to coating types - ceramic coatings adopt UV curing (energy density 300-400mJ/cm²), and polyester coatings use hot air circulation curing (180℃×20min), ensuring full cross-linking and stable performance of coatings.
After a well-known home appliance enterprise introduced this solution, the complaint rate of surface scratches for its high-end refrigerator series decreased by 72%, user feedback on "fingerprint cleanability" increased by 40%, and the product premium space increased by 15%, verifying the market value of the technical solution.
Conclusion
In the context of increasingly fierce competition in appliance appearance, scratch and fingerprint resistance have become important selling points for product differentiation. Through material innovation, process optimization, and equipment upgrading, we provide home appliance enterprises with a full-chain solution from coating formulation to whole-line implementation, which not only solves pain points in actual use but also improves product texture and added value. In the future, we will continue to develop coating technologies with lower surface energy and higher wear resistance, helping home appliance enterprises create products with more market competitiveness.
