By Javier Bohorquez and Dirk Mestach, Allnex Netherlands B.V. Water-borne technology for automotive OEM assembly plants was first introduced back in the 1980s, and water-borne basecoat refinish systems have been used in Europe since the early to mid-1990s. Waterborne systems have proved to be superior to solvent-borne systems in many ways, and the technology has many advantages such as reduced odour in the workplace environment and improved air quality. The colour-matching capabilities and metallic orientation ('flop') also represent a vast improvement over the solvent-borne systems previously used. The ...