As Akcoat R&D Center we are developing new functional coatings with high level of characterization skills. Glass R&D Department is mainly focused on 6 different areas of investigation and innovation. Our main business area is frit production. We have been producing enamel, ceramic and glass frits for 45 years. These frits serve as glass-ceramic coatings on different substrates like steel, iron and glass.
Akcoat is the only company that produces low melting glass frits in Turkey. Akcoat has wide range of glass frits which are Zinc and Bismuth based. Those frits can be used in many glass sectors including household appliances, tableware, glassware, glass packaging and automotive. Akcoat also produces its own mediums for different application processes like serigraphy, roller coating and pad printing.
Akcoat glass frits are not only used in coatings outside of the glass, but also we colorize inside the glass body. These frit colorants are named as concentrate Forehearth frits that include high amount of colorant oxides like manganese dioxide, iron oxide, nickel or cobalt oxide. Akcoat has 20 different colors in its portfolio. With Forehearth colorants, glass is used in every aspect of daily life in the cosmetics, pharmaceutical and glassware industries by coloring it within the glass itself. We help our customers to reduce their energy consumption to produce environment-friendly glassware and derivative products. These products are refractory friendly, less corrosive and no requirement for an extra paint or coating on the end product.
Pad printing method is used in tableware production sector and we develop and implement colorized powder glass enamels with flux recipes and special mediums to achieve excellent designs for our customers.
Akcoat R&D is mainly focused on the Zinc and Bismuth based household appliances glass enamels to meet different customer expectations with high chemical, mechanical and opacity specifications required in the kitchen conditions. We have various other paints in our portfolio for decorative and architectural glasses from transparent to matte effects, and many colors in RAL or PANTONE catalogues.
Other field of development is based on Automotive windshield glasses for laminated and press bending processes. As the main aspect of glass enamels on automotive glasses is to protect polyurethane glue from sunlight, we supply high UV protection by extra high opacity and low transmission of light with a combination of high mechanical and chemical resistance. We provide PPAP documents of the glass enamels that we develop.
Our special glass coating section is mainly organic content based for glassware and tableware sector. We improve and design the expectation of customers in different ranges and purposes.
All those improvements and trials are followed by 3 phase improvement in our research center. First phase is characterization step, data collection according customer conditions. The next step is lab scale trials and required test procedure application to see where we are. We have firing kilns, continuous systems in our pilot plant in the R&D Center. This way we can optimize our recipe and process conditions before the production trials. First sample meets with customer and we renew the recipe when there is a need for improvement. Lean and design oriented methodologies are used in our all recipe structures. We produce our frit, pigment and mediums internally in Akcoat. Thereby we have the knowledge of all the components in the glass enamels. We use our R&D center as a key to meet our customer expectations to find solutions regarding their current needs and problems.
Our future projects are mainly based on other sectors where our customers need us as a partner. Globally there is satisfactory demand for this type of cooperation. Therefore we are enlarging our R&D team for new business improvement projects. Glass printing sector transforms into digital technologies every new day. We are focused to improve digital glass enamels with the know-how of Akcoat Spain. We want to be a leader in this business in the near future with our innovative products.
