Effect Pigments Formed by Coating of Metal Flakes

Metal effect pigments consisting of flakes or lamellae of aluminum (aluminum bronzes), copper and copper-zinc alloys (“gold bronzes”), zinc, and other metals have been well known for a long time [31]. Some of these metal flakes, especially aluminum platelets, can be coated with iron oxide in a CVD process [1, 11, 19]. These are commercially the most important pigments based on CVD. The metal flakes are fluidized in nitrogen gas at temperatures around 450 °C. Then the reagents Fe(CO)5 and O2 are injected into the fluidized bed. For a proper coating these must be highly diluted in an inert gas. Sometimes water vapor is added to reduce electrostatic charging. The thickness of the coating is controlled by the reaction time. The only side product is carbon monoxide, which is catalytically oxi­dized to CO2. The resulting pigments show golden, orange, and reddish metal­like effects.

The aluminum flakes can be coated with aluminum oxide and/or silicon dioxide in the liquid phase before the CVD process to reduce the reactivity of the metal and to create multilayer color effects. These pigments show strong angle-dependent coloris — tic effects (color travel) [32]. Metal halogenides are difficult to use as gas-phase precur­sors for metal oxide coating because of the reactivity of the metal flakes and the corro­sion ofsteel in chloride atmospheres. The use ofTiCl4 and water vapor was described about ten years ago. However, no commercial products have, as yet, been intro­duced.

Mica flakes can also be coated in CVD processes using the same techniques as those discussed for metal flakes. In addition, one can also use metal chlorides as precursors for oxide coating on mica. However, essentially the same products can be obtained more easily by precipitating the oxides from the liquid phase.

7.4

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