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Conformal Coating Protection Capabilities

By 2025, there will be over 41 billion connected devices enabling the collective intelligence of the Internet of Things. Smart devices fulfill critical roles in varied industries including medical, industrial, automotive, and consumer electronics, but regardless of the market, electronics need protection. Deployed in harsh operating environments, most of these electronics will be subject to challenges such as rain, humidity, salt fog, corrosive liquids, pollutants, salt, and more. 

To ensure smart devices stay connected, sensitive circuitry needs trustworthy protection to overcome environmental obstacles. HZO’s nanocoating and conformal coating protection fulfill this critical need.

Electronic Protection Against The Elements

We approach the idea of electronics protection differently. The traditional protection methodology was to keep liquid, moisture, and contaminants outside of devices with seals. The problem is that with seals or gaskets, the very materials intended to safeguard the electronics can deteriorate. When this happens, hazards get in, and when outside elements enter, they become trapped, breaking down components until they fail. 

HZO believes reliable protection happens from the inside out. We provide thin-film barriers that provide contaminant, corrosion, solvent, humidity, and solvent-resistance with alternative benefits such as dielectric and thermal properties at the component or board level.

Because every protection requirement varies, we offer an elegant solution – a proprietary Spectrum of ProtectionTM. This suite of coating solutions, varied in chemical compositions and application methods, is designed to meet diverse use, industry, and product-specific requirements. Our team evaluates and suggests protection methods, with the final solution customized to fit manufacturing and cost requirements.

What Do Conformal Coatings Protect Against?

Conformal coatings can protect against a variety of things, including but not limited to water, salt, humidity, sweat, bodily fluids, corrosion and more. Although more than one type of conformal coating and nano coating is available for each desired solution, the easiest way to figure out which solution is best for you is to examine which coating is recommended for your specific need.

Challenges Found in Nature

Electronics, regardless of their intended use, shouldn’t cease to work simply because the internal electrical components became exposed to nature’s water, rain, salt fog, or humidity. These protective conformal coatings will solve each of their challenges respectively:

Needs

Suggested Solutions

Waterproofing

HZO Parylene: With HZO Parylene, water won’t bother the circuit boards. Parylene is highly conformal, wrapping around every edge, delivering continuity of thickness.

Water Resistant

HZO Nano Coatings: HZO nano coatings are naturally hydrophobic. Moisture will roll right off and not “seep” into the protected areas.

Rain

HZO Nano Coatings: HZO’s nano coatings hydrophobic qualities make it splash proof.

Salt/Ocean Water

HZO Parylene: HZO’s Parylene ionic permeability is extremely low. Salt (and other microscopic contaminants) won’t even touch the sensitive electronic circuitry.

Salt Fog

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylene demonstrates good dielectric with great abrasion resistance. Salt will never have a chance to cling to the components even after the moisture evaporates.

Humidity

HZO Nano Coatings: HZO nano coatings can ensure humidity stays in its place: firmly away from your electrical components. The life span of your product won’t be decreased in humid environments.

Heat Dissipation HZO Parylene: Thin film coatings are going to facilitate heat dissipation the best and no protective coating is thinner than Parylene.

Challenges Found in the Home

Daily life shouldn’t interrupt the use of electronics that make life better, keep you on track to being healthy, and protect your safety. For OEMs and engineers, device failure means more returns, more warranty claims, and more headaches. The internal electrical components in these devices need protection with conformal coatings from threats that are often unanticipated, but dangerous for electronics, including chlorinated liquids, acidic and sticky beverages, detergents, and dust.

Needs

Suggested Solutions

Chlorinated liquids

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylene is fully conformal and highly resistant to various types of chemicals. Chlorine is corrosive. You don’t even want to take a chance at having your electronics being splashed or dunked in this substance without HZO Protection.

Acidic or sticky beverages: coffee, soda, beer, electrolyte solutions or juice

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylene’s polymer chains intertwine with one another, ensuring a protective barrier is created. Customers deserve to live their lives without fear of what beverages might spill, splash, or saturate their devices.

Detergents

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylene resists chemical reactions due to its composition. Over time, particles of detergent can get lodged between the connectors and other areas of the circuit board, causing corrosion or mechanical hiccups. Combine this with unexpected humidity or actual other liquids and you have a potential electronics disaster in your hands. Literally.

Dust

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylene’s barrier properties prevent dust from getting to the board. This prevents related scratches, corrosion and mechanical interruption of the device.

Challenges Found in Industry

Different industries rely on technology more than ever before to make their work faster, safer, and smarter. When electrical components, PCBAs, and batteries fail due to exposure to bodily fluids, gases, pollutants, and decontaminants, high costs are incurred. A single component failure could cause downtime in production, potential litigation costs, and increased labor hours during machine repair. The following are just some of the hazards potentially encountered “on the job.”

Biofluids

Biofluids can be corrosive to electronics given the salts and other chemicals found in the body. For example, medical personnel need to ensure their instruments and sensors can withstand accidental or deliberate exposure to biofluids like blood. Law enforcement relies on body cams and radios for critical communication and cannot risk losing them to body sweat after a long, exhausting day. Whether the device will be worn on the body or worn or used inside the body, HZO literally, has the electrical components “covered.”

Needs

Suggested Solutions

Sweat

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylene doesn’t let liquids through and it’s highly resistant to chemical compounds. Sweat varies from person to person in terms of chemical composition and intensity. HZO Nano Coatings may also serve as a solution to wick away light sweat through hydrophobicity.

Bodily Fluids

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylene increases the lubricity of a medical device and doesn’t let oxygen or water through its surface. Blood, sweat, plasma, and more all have different textures and compositions. Keep all of these fluids fully and completely separate from the electronics within a device by using Parylene.

Corrosion

If your machines, electronics and devices are exposed to corrosive liquids, gases, pollutants of any kind, or decontaminates, you’ll want to increase the longevity of these components by making them even more durable with HZO protective coatings. These solutions are especially effective in oil and gas, automotive, industrial, and more.

Needs

Suggested Solutions

Gases

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylenes are resistant to nearly all types of chemical reactions. With humidity and fog, gases can “seep” their way into connectors, leaving undesirable and harmful residues behind. Keep them at bay with HZO’s Parylene properties.

Pollutants

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylenes blocks everything. Man-made particles won’t get through. Suspended aerosols or particulates could become nuclei, absorb moisture, and react with other chemicals they’re near. If you can’t fully predict which pollutants your different electrical components will be exposed to at any given time, just take the guesswork out by protecting it with HZO Parylene.

Decontaminants

HZO Parylene: HZO Parylenes are highly resistant to chemical reactions. Chemical solutions meant to keep humans safe by decontaminating structures, objects, or the human body, are not necessarily friendly for electronics. Don’t let the spills, splashes, or gases from decontaminants near the circuit boards by using HZO Parylene.

No matter the location, whether in nature, in the home or on the job, HZO is needed and capable of protecting the unique environments you’re in throughout your life.

IEC Ingress Protection Ratings (IP Code)

HZO’s protection capabilities meet and notoriously exceed current IP ratings (also known as: ingress protection ratings or IP Code), depending on the configuration.

Current IEC Protection Standards

The International Electronics Commission (IEC) established protection guidelines for electronics in the form of IP ratings in 1976. These ratings measure how long an electrical component or device can survive after spills, splashes, or full submersion for specific lengths of time. For example, IPX7 means that a device can survive after a 30-minute submersion.

The current ratings are a good start but are insufficient to meet consumer needs or industrial market demands. Namely because these ratings only apply to clean, fresh water, not sweat, fog, humidity, chlorine (i.e. pool water), soapy water, or other types of liquids the electronic components of the device can come into contact with. Further, take note that according to many device manufacturers, these ratings are also only applicable to new, unused, still-in-the-box products.

Protection for Today’s World

At HZO, we provide protection solutions that will exceed today’s rating standards. 

It’s becoming necessary for not just convenience, but safety. Because of HZO, long-lasting devices and components hold up to real life threats with consumers and industries alike enjoying convenience and safety through continued functionality. This protection directly leads to brand satisfaction and retention. Meanwhile, brands and OEMs, through protected products, owe it their working relationships and to their customers to provide spectacular and long-lasting protection to the internal electrical components of their devices.

Depending on specific design criteria, HZO protective coatings may help mitigate the risk of loss or litigation from failed critical components, warranty claims, and repairs. Protection also helps ensure incremental revenue creation through customer satisfaction, and retention. This is because our protection goes directly on the surface of the electrical components, so even if a liquid gets into the device itself, it’s not harming the electrical component.

On a regular basis, HZO coats and protects hundreds of thousands of pieces per day, with the ability to scale up to hundreds of thousands or millions of pieces per day. No matter how big the project is, HZO has mastered the coating capabilities, solutions, and processes to do it with proven results.

At HZO, we eat, sleep, and breathe protection. We take your protection needs seriously. You deserve expertise and so do your customers. Your electrical components are literally, in no better hands, for your needs.

Reach out to see how we can help protect your electrical components and your bottom line.

Discover how HZO can protect your product