Water Quality

Understanding Water Quality and Optimizing Water Usage

Water is a significant variable in the pretreatment process comprising >95% of the pretreatment process chemistry.
Thought must be given to water’s contribution and its ultimate cost in the pretreatment operation.
Water’s primary role is to remove chemical, soil residue and contaminants from the metal substrate.
This creates a contaminant free surface which promotes optimum coating adhesion and performance.
Water quality has a critical importance in achieving your specified coating performance standards.
Water quality is directly related to the impurities or contaminants that it contains.
A major issue for a superior quality pretreatment process is the level of total dissolved solids (TDS) accumulating in the rinse water.
Excessive TDS in the water will deposit on the metal substrate during rinsing. As it evaporates the impurities remain on the metal substrate.
Poor water quality results in salt spray failure, rust, warranty claims, excessive water treatment costs, maintenance costs, labor costs and environment compliance issues.

Good water quality is fundamental to any aqueous pretreatment system.
Poor water quality will limit the effectiveness of the chemical stages, leading to greater chemical usage.
Water quality will impact pretreatment process performance.
- Salt Spray Testing.
- Humidity Testing.
Inadequate or inefficient water quality can be costly.