Mazda Painting its Cars Greener

The Mazda Motor Corporation continues to find ways to be a better global citizen with a car painting system that it says has the lowest environmental impact in the world. The new “Aqua-Tech Paint System” reduces the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) by 57% and, happily, improves the paint job.“Aqua-Tech” maintains the same world-class low carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as Mazda’s existing “Three Layer Wet Paint” system but further reduces VOC emissions to just 15 grams per square meter of body surface.While water-based paints are naturally lower in VOC emissions than solvent-based paint, drying them uses much more energy and, thus, increases CO2. Mazda have overcome this with a combination of improved paint technology and a more efficient evaporative drying system.Mazda has successfully launched the Aqua-tech Paint System for vehicle body painting at its Ujina Plant No.1 in Japan.