Acid etch of automotive clearcoats II. Comparison of degradation chemistryin laboratory and field testing

A laboratory test procedure was developed to quantitatively evaluate the ac id etch resistance of automotive clearcoats. Here we attempt to verify that the conditions used in the laboratory test reproduce the field degradation chemistry to assure that the test is evaluating realistic performance char acteristics. In this study we applied X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS ) as a tool to determine if degradation products are observable which can b e used to verify the consistency of the field and laboratory degradation pr ocesses for acrylic melamine-based clearcoats.