A coating aims to improve the durability and resistance of a material or a surface.
Coating is the process and result of covering (recovering something, repairing a roof). For example: “We have to improve the coating of the building since there are leaks in the main room” , “The cake I made for Juan's birthday has a chocolate coating on the last layer of cream” , “To improve the protection of the device, the Finnish manufacturer included a titanium coating in the latest model of the equipment .
Typically, the coating is a defense that improves the resistance or durability of something . There are, however, decorative coatings whose purpose is ornamental.
Coatings of different surfaces
A mobile phone may have a plastic coating to prevent it from getting wet or damaged. It can also have a coating with small jewels to improve its aesthetics.
The floor of a home, for its part, can have a ceramic or marble coating. These materials , in turn, can be coated with wax or another substance to enhance their beauty, clean them or protect them.
At an industrial level, the material that is installed on the surface of a substrate to care for it or perfect some of its properties is called a coating. Through coating, therefore, the substrate can gain hardness, gloss, etc.
The coating can be done in different ways.
Different techniques
Likewise, it should not be overlooked that, to increase durability, coatings can be carried out in many different ways. However, it is usually undertaken based on five different techniques: by laser , through chemical vapor deposition , by a spray system, with electrochemical techniques or through an optical class coating .
It is also true that it can be undertaken through enamels , paint , through an immersion process or through polymers.
Coating in the field of painting
In the field of painting, it is one of the sectors where the term coating is used most clearly and commonly. Specifically, in this field it is used to refer to the finish that is given to a specific space or surface by applying a layer of a specific material with the aim of achieving a result that is aesthetically appropriate and optimal.
In this case, painting professionals, to achieve the aforementioned goal, can use an endless number of coating materials, such as varnishes, chlorinated rubber, cellulose-type enamels, acrylic enamels, vinyl resins, silicones...
The facades of buildings and homes are the surfaces on which most work is done, carrying out coatings that not only give them a beautiful appearance but also allow them to be thermally insulated to achieve fire-retardant properties , for example. Thus, they are painted with materials such as those mentioned, plasterboard sheets are placed on them and vinyl PVC sheets are installed, among other things.
The concept in mathematics
The notion of coating is also used in the field of mathematics .
In this case, we speak of covering a set when its elements are the same as the union of the elements of a collection of subsets of it.