To adhere to the surface of a car efficiently, paints are formulated to be sticky, tacky compounds. Despite best efforts of chemists and engineers, paint stays in the air or is deposited on surrounding surfaces, rather than on the car body. This is costly for manufacturers as excess paint must be removed from the air stream and surrounding surfaces through a laborious cleaning process.
To minimize the problem, paint-laden air is passed through a curtain of water blended with paint “detackifiers.” These are traditionally formaldehyde or acrylic-based agents derived from non-renewable natural gas or crude oil stocks which are also a serious environmental threat. Both the paint and petroleum-based detackifiers must disposed of before the water can be recycled and returned to the environment.
Green Logic is PPG’s name for an environmentally-friendly paint detackifier that replaces formaldehyde and acrylic compounds with a polysaccharide derived from chitin – the constituent of shellfish shells. Chitin (shellfish waste) is converted to chitosan, which performs the tasks previously done by the acrylic acids and melamine-formaldehyde polymers. Green Logic performs more effectively than petroleum detackifiers, resulting in lower maintenance costs, reduced wastewater treatment costs, and greatly reduced yearly water replenishment costs. Green Logic requires no significant changes in existing process equipment. Green Logic avoids non-renewable petroleum stocks, conserves water, and reduces the volume of harmful sludge that must be disposed of in landfills.
After success at GM’s Janesville, Wisconsin, facility, Green Logic was introduced at the GM Lordstown plant, and is now operating at GM’s Orion Plant, Ford’s Twin Cities and Kentucky Truck Plant, Mitsubishi’s plant in Normal, Illinois, BMW’s in Spartanburg, and Toyota’s in Cambridge, Ontario. Numerous additional plants are slated for 2008.