Paint and Coating Removal Technologies: Past, Present and Future

All painted structures, whether metallic or non-metallic, are stripped and repainted for a variety of reasons at one time or another. The most important reason of them all is for loss of corrosion protection. Paint stripping methods have varied from classical approach of hand or mechanical scrubbing with abrasive materials to use of chemicals. In the last decade, the concerns for environmental pollution and human health have changed all that. The search for cleaner and greener technologies for paint stripping process has begun. For the present discussion, these technologies have been grouped into the following basic categories: (a) chemical or solvent-based; (b) media blasting; and (c) optical (laser) or thermal-based. Mechanical scrubbing of the stripped substrate also often precedes the re-painting step. This paper provides a brief overview of such approaches and their relative merits and demerits as applied to coatings on aircraft structures.