Why infrared emitters are so important for waterborne coatings

Water evaporates more slowly than solvents.
Moving away from solvents, towards more environmentally friendly paints and coatings therefore requires thinking ahead when it comes to paint drying. A switch to infrared drying helps.

It is known that the wavelength of infrared emission has a significant influence on drying. Water evaporates particularly quickly when irradiated with medium-wave infrared emitters. The reason for this is that, in contrast to the very short-wave near infrared emission, the medium-wave emission is very well absorbed by the water and then converted directly into heat.

All carbon infrared emitters CIR combine the effective medium-wave emission with high surface powers and accelerate the drying of water-based paints and varnishes at high efficiency. Response times in the range of seconds make the carbon emitter highly controllable. Extensive tests show that carbon emitters dry water-soluble paints much more efficiently than short-wave infrared emitters. A carbon infrared emitter requires up to 30% less energy for the drying process than a conventional short-wave infrared emitter.