Commonly known as E-COAT, or ELECTRIC-PAINT, EDP is more technically termed–CATHODIC ELECTROPHORETICALL DEPOSITED PAINT.
The paint formulation applied is the latest Lead free type “Medium Build” Epoxy. The process utilizes preparatory immersion steps including cleaning, and fine grain Zinc Phosphating before the painting stage.
Post painting, the coating is oven cured at 175 C. E-coat offers increased corrosion resistance and in a 5% neutral salt spray test to AS2331.3.1 only showed the onset of red rusting for a 20um coat after 840hrs. Applied over zinc plated steel, the corrosion resistance increases from 840hrs, to up to 2000hrs depending on zinc thickness.
The chemical resistance of E-coat is good against mineral and vegetable oils, hydraulic fluids, glycols, gasolines, weak acids, and common organic solvents. However it is not resistant to warm caustic. E-coat will also have colour degradation with prolonged exposure to ultraviolet radiation however this can easily be overcome by the application of a powder topcoat.
