[Miko M]

Japanese automaker has turned to an innovative new paint atomizer as another way to reduce CO2 emissions. The airless paint atomizer makes use of static electricity instead of air and, as a result, achieves a coating efficiency of 95 percent instead of the usual 60-70 percent.
What exactly is coating efficiency? It applies to the volume of paint sprayed relative to the amount of paint that ends up sticking to the vehicle's body. With a loss of only five percent from spraying to adhesion, Toyota claims that the new technique achieves the highest coating efficiency in the world.


Using the new painting process will reduce the Toyota Group's CO2 emissions by approximately seven percent, no mean feat for one of the largest automobile manufacturers globally. Unlike conventional air paint atomizers using aerodynamic force - a process that causes paint particles to ricochet off of the surface it is applied to - Toyota's new process sees statically charged particles gravitating to the surface (the vehicle body). In this way, far fewer atomized particles are scattered, so wastage is dramatically reduced.
The diagram below shows the tip of the airless paint atomizer. Cylindrical in shape, the tip has 600 grooves and, upon rotation, the paint flows through the grooves. Using static electricity, the paint is atomized.