FLEXible solution (CP 2/2009)

Paints from BASF Coatings improve the appearance of insulation pipes – and help to save costs at the same time.

Colorful instead of gray: Paints from BASF Coatings protect and brighten up insulation pipes. (Picture: L’ISOLANTE K-FLEX)		Insulation pipes and esthetics – two terms that initially appear not to have very much in common. However, it is also possible to attractively integrate the pipe insulation of heating and air conditioning systems into buildings and offer both architects and designers new, stylish possibilities for their designs. To achieve this, functionality and esthetics must go hand in hand. By teaming up with the Italian insulation materials manufacturer L’ISOLANTE K-FLEX, .
BASF Coatings has succeeded in developing a flexible product that caters to both of these demands: the K-FLEX COLOR SYSTEM offers highly resistant coatings for insulation tubes and sheets.

Esthetic solutions

The insulation products manufactured by L’ISOLANTE K-FLEX are highly flexible elastomeric foam materials for thermal and acoustical insulation. The right look is ensured by using paints from BASF Coatings for the K-FLEX COLOR SYSTEM range.

“With this insulation concept, customers can choose from a broad range of colors in order to satisfy requirements not only in terms of necessary insulation, but also for design and corporate identity,” explains Massimiliano Colombini, Corporate Marketing Director at L’ISOLANTE K-FLEX.

“We provide flexible elastomeric insulation materials and at the same time esthetic solutions for both designers and architects.”

Up until now, gray and black standard heating system pipes have generally been covered with insulation materials and only then, using a time-consuming process, the encasement could be coated.

L’ISOLANTE K-FLEX does things differently. The company coats the elastomeric tubes during the actual manufacturing process with an acrylic paint from BASF Coatings.

Time and money savings

BASF developed the highly resistant spray paint at its liquid coatings laboratory located in the northern Italian town of Burago. Regardless of how much a tube is bent, twisted or compressed, the coat-ing remains firmly adhered to the elastomeric substrate, without flaking off.

The coated insulation material is than fitted in a single operation, without any need for additional coating steps – a process that saves up to 50 percent in terms of time and money.

The result of the K-FLEX COLOR -SYSTEM is impressive. The new coating protects the tube better than other materials and increases the service life of the insulation from 18 months to five years.

BASF Coatings has been working with L’ISOLANTE K-FLEX since 2001. “The development of the K-FLEX COLOR SYSTEM presented a tremendous challenge for both companies, which we successfully mastered together,” says a delighted Valentina Modugno, Marketing Support for Postcoatings at BASF Coatings.

“We are of course dealing with a niche product. What we have realized, however, is the tremendous potential of coatings that can be used not only on firm or metallic substrates and whose function goes beyond simply protecting surfaces.”

Highly flexible: The elastomeric foam and its coating resist even to extreme twisting. (Picture: L’ISOLANTE K-FLEX)

www.isolante.it, www.kflex.com