Painting of plastics: New challenges and possibilities

With the advent of the use of plastic materials as construction materials due to several property advantages, painting of such materials has become very essential in order to obtain the aesthetic properties. The latter has posed new challenges for the coating industries. The main challenge has been posed due to their low surface energies compared to conventional metallic materials. In this review all the measures required to cope with these problems both from the point of view of modification of plastic surfaces and designing of suitable coating formulations have been summarised.