In recent years, with the awakening of global environmental awareness and the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, China's powder coating industry has ushered in a historic development opportunity. As a new type of coating with both environmental protection properties and industrial performance, powder coatings, with its zero VOC emissions, high durability, and diverse colors, have set off an industrial revolution of "paint to powder" in the fields of home appliances, furniture, construction, and automobiles, and have become an important breakthrough for China's coatings industry to achieve high-quality development.
Industry Rise: Dual Driven By Environmental Protection Demand And Technological Breakthroughs
Under the background of the "dual carbon" strategy, China's powder coating industry has completed a gorgeous transformation from marginal products to mainstream materials. Data show that between 2020 and 2024. although China's total coatings output has experienced short-term fluctuations due to the impact of the epidemic, the powder coatings market segment has grown against the trend. Especially in the field of home appliances, leading companies have taken the lead in completing the transformation of coating processes, driving the penetration rate of powder coatings in the entire industry to more than 35%. Behind this transformation is the breakthrough in raw material technology - the development of low-temperature curing resins will reduce the curing temperature from 200°C to 120°C, and the application of UV curing technology will increase production efficiency by 40%, providing technical support for the green transformation of traditional manufacturing.
Global Pattern: The king Status Of Made In China
In the global powder coating market, China has occupied an absolute dominant position. Data from 2024 show that China's powder coating output exceeded 3.5 million tons, accounting for 62% of the global total output and 49% of the output value. The establishment of this scale advantage has benefited from the complete industrial chain ecology and has also formed the world's most complete powder coating industry cluster. More noteworthy is that Chinese companies continue to make breakthroughs in high-end fields. In the future, the market share of high-tech in the field of automotive original paint has increased to 12%, breaking the long-term monopoly of international giants.
Technological Innovation: Opening A New Track For Industrial Upgrading
At present, China's powder coating industry is developing rapidly along three technical axes:
1. Functional innovation: antibacterial powder coatings are commercialized in the field of medical equipment, 500°C high-temperature coatings help spacecraft manufacturing, and conductive coatings provide electromagnetic shielding solutions for 5G base stations.
2. Process innovation: The "coating integration" model is promoted in the construction machinery industry, compressing the traditional 7 processes to 2. and reducing the overall cost by 30%.
3. Digital empowerment: The AI color matching system established by Sankeshu Coatings can shorten the traditional 3-day color matching cycle to 2 hours, and the accuracy reaches the international top level of ΔE<0.5.
Future Challenges: From Scale Expansion To Value Creation
Despite its remarkable achievements, China's powder coating industry still faces the challenge of the "last 10%" of core technologies. In the fields of high-end materials such as super-weather-resistant resins and special functional additives, the import dependence is still as high as 45%. This requires the industry to accelerate the construction of a "production, learning, research and application" collaborative innovation system, especially to increase investment in cutting-edge fields such as bio-based resin development and nano-composite technology applications. According to industry forecasts, with the outbreak of demand in emerging markets such as new energy vehicles and photovoltaic brackets, the global powder coating market size will exceed 20 billion euros by 2030. of which the compound growth rate of functional powder coatings is expected to reach 15%.
In this green material revolution, China's powder coating industry is experiencing a critical leap from "following" to "running side by side". Through continuous technological innovation and industrial collaboration, this industry, which was once dominated by foreign capital, is writing a vivid example of the transformation from Made in China to Created in China. When environmental protection needs become a global consensus and the "paint to powder" wave sweeps more fields, Chinese powder coating companies are expected to create a world-class industry benchmark in the new track of high-end manufacturing and green economy. This is not only about the rise and fall of a sub-industry, but also a microcosm of the overall upgrading of China's manufacturing industry.
