Paint stripping on metals

Paints provide metal substrates with resistance properties and define their aesthetic appearance. Protecting an aircraft or a car with paint means protecting its "lifespan". This protection must be exercised against a multitude of aggressions: oxygen, water, temperature variations, solar irradiation, atmospheric pollution, accelerated degradation and ageing of materials through repeated use, but also maintenance operations (cleaning and detection of wear on the substrate). At some point, protection is no longer guaranteed, and the coating must be stripped using one of the available processes: mechanical, thermal or chemical (figure 1 ).

In this article, after a brief review of thermal and mechanical pickling techniques, we will focus on the chemical pickling technique, which is by far the most widely used.