A coating apparatus discharging a coating liquid to a coated object, comprising:
- a coating liquid reservoir that has an internal tank and stores the coating liquid in the internal tank;
- and
- an application nozzle that has a slit-shaped discharge port disposed at a distal end of the application nozzle and discharges the coating liquid from the internal tank of the coating liquid reservoir, wherein
- the slit-shaped discharge port is located at a place above the coated object, extending in a longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped discharge port,
- a relative movement between the application nozzle and the coated object is caused to apply the coating liquid to a surface of the coated object via the slit-shaped discharge port,
- the coating liquid reservoir has a coating liquid feeder that is in a hollow and cylindrical shape for holding the coating liquid therein,
- the coating liquid feeder is configured to extend along and to rotate around an axis of the cylindrical shape, and is disposed in the coating liquid reservoir in a manner to be located at a place above the slit-shaped discharge port and the axis of the cylindrical shape is parallel to the longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped discharge port,
- an outer periphery of the coating liquid feeder is formed with a coating liquid holding recess having a predetermined cut-off pattern such that the coating liquid inside the coating liquid feeder is fed via the coating liquid holding recess while the coating liquid feeder rotates,
- the internal tank of the coating liquid reservoir has a width with respect to a width direction, which is perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the slit-shaped discharge port and to a vertical direction, wherein the width of the internal tank at its bottom is larger than a diameter of the outer periphery of the coating liquid feeder such that the coating liquid feeder is configured to be fully submerged under the coating liquid when a predetermined amount of the coating liquid is held in the internal tank,
- a partition member for dividing the slit-shaped discharge port into plural discharge parts along the longitudinal direction of in the slit-shaped discharge port is disposed, wherein the partition member has a continuous wave pattern so that each of the plural discharge parts are alternately arranged in turn on either side of the slit-shaped discharge port with respect to the width direction,
- while causing the relative movement between the coated object and the application nozzle, the coating liquid feeder with the coating liquid holding recess holding the coating liquid therein is rotated around the axis in the coating liquid reservoir, so that the coating liquid held in the coating liquid feeder is discharged to the surface of the coated object via some discharge parts at positions corresponding to the coating liquid holding recess moved to the slit-shaped discharge port of the application nozzle, and thus, the coating liquid is applied to the surface of the coated object in a manner to correspond to a shape of the coating liquid holding recess, and
- a length of the partition member is shorter than that of the slit-shaped discharge port with respect to a discharge direction of the slit-shaped discharge port in which the coating liquid is discharged from the slit-shaped discharge port such that a distal edge of the partition member does not reach a distal edge of the slit-shaped discharge port, creating a single longitudinally continuous hollow space between the distal edge of the partition member and the distal edge of the slit-shaped discharge port.