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Article of the Week

- Understanding Cool Coatings for Automotive
Energy prices have skyrocketed over the last several years, and the “green” movement is clearly in full swing. Energy is a precious global commodity, which some areas of the world are taking dramatic steps to conserve. In fact, several regulations...  


Most Popular Articles

- Antimicrobial Polymer Emulsions
There has been growing interest in new antimicrobial solutions in recent years, driven by a desire to provide longer-lasting protection in products that can be degraded by microbes, or to control or eliminate the undesirable effects created by the... (1 Member Reaction) 

- Factory-Applied UV- Curable Coatings
Most architectural coatings are applied on the job site, but that may change when it comes to building components produced from composites, vinyl and cement fiber. During the next few years, many manufacturers that produce decking, fencing, trim and...

- Understanding and Use of Glass Flake
It is said that glass flake was developed in the United States around 1959 and was used initially for the reinforcement of what was, at that time, new-technology roof-light panels made from a polyester resin. However, it was found that the panels...

- New Generation of Silica-Encapsulated, Ultramarine Blue High-Performance Pigments for Coatings
There are several possible definitions of High-Performance Pigments (HPPs) but all of them go in the same direction. A high-performance pigment is one that: * demonstrates high-performance properties in its intended end use; * commands a premium... (1 Member Reaction) 

- Doping Increases Effectiveness
Since discovering the photocatalytic properties of titanium dioxide, great expectations have been placed on this semiconducting material. A very promising application, besides effluent water purification, is air quality improvement by photocatalytic... (3 Member Reactions) 

- New Sulfonic Acid Catalysts for Coil Coatings
A new class of blocked sulfonic acid catalysts has been developed that promotes the crosslinking reaction of hydroxyl-functional polymers with amino-formaldehyde crosslinking agents such as hexamethoxymethyl melamine, especially in coil coatings.... (7 Member Reactions) 

- Ink Production Plant Rebuilt to Improve Product Quality and Meet Environmental Regulations
Gravure printing has continually lost share in the printing market since the 1950s. Alternate technologies and, more recently, environmental demands have pressured ink makers to find new applications, new technologies and better processes. And in the... (1 Member Reaction) 

- Synthesis of an Eco-friendly, General- Purpose Binder Based on Agro-Waste Materials
The cashew (Anacardium occidentale) tree is native to northeastern Brazil, where it is called by its Portuguese name Caju (the fruit) or Cajureiro (the tree). It is now widely grown in tropical climates for its cashew nuts and cashew apple.... (1 Member Reaction) 

- Hydroxy Ethyl Fatty Amide Effect on the Perfomance Properties of Polyesteramide Resins Based on Acrylic Copolymers
One of the major pollutants emitted by a surface coating is organic solvent used during processing and application. Hence, efforts have been made to develop alternative technologies that minimize the use of organic solvents in surface coatings. These...

- Ultraviolet (UV) Measurement for Formulators
For those involved in UV processes, UV measurement and process control is an important topic. Measurement answers critical questions like "How do we know whether a process is running properly?" "How do we troubleshoot problems with cure?" "How do we...  

- Analysis of Coatings Using Pyrolysis-GC/MS
Because they are complex formulations of both organic and inorganic materials, coatings offer a special challenge to the analytical chemist. The high concentration of opaque materials that give paints their ability to cover a surface may also make...

- Antimicrobial Coatings
A study conducted by the Battelle organization forecasts that antibacterial surfaces and germ-resistant coatings will be an important technological breakthrough in household products. Homeowners are looking for new cleansers that provide lasting... (1 Member Reaction) 

- Federal R&D Tax Credit Program Helps Coatings Industry in Tight Economy
With the current state of the economy, companies within the coatings industry are looking at every avenue to increase their cash flow and thus their bottom line. Countless companies in the industry have recognized the value in pursuing the Research...

- Methods for Developing High-Shear or ICI Viscosity Through the Use of Novel, Hyper-Efficient Nonionic Associative Thickeners
Through the adoption of increasingly more stringent environmental regulations, the coatings industry has been moving away from traditional oil-based paint systems and toward water-based systems that contain lower levels of VOCs. From an applications...

- Preparation and Properties of UV-Curable Polyurethane Acrylate Resins for Metal Surfaces
UV-curable coatings are a boon to the paint industry, as they not only reduce VOCs but also speed up production processes and provide protective, durable and attractive finishes. UV-curable polyurethane acrylates have been synthesized from polyester... (1 Member Reaction) 

- Trimethylol Propane Monoallyl Ether as Hydroxyl-Functional Co-Monomer
The interest for hydroxyl-functional acrylic resins as a component in polyurethane coatings has increased not only because of improved performance through crosslinking, but also because of higher non-volatile content. Hydroxyl functionality may be...

- The New Age of Waterborne Soft-Touch Coatings
Two-component (2K) polyurethane (PUR) soft-touch coatings have been used to coat plastics in the automotive industry for over a decade. Due to the inherent traits of polyurethanes, the coating formulations exhibit high scratch and abrasion resistance...

- Organoclays: Additional possibilities offered to formulators thanks to new clay sources
Organoclays have long been used as rheological modifiers for solvent and oil based systems requiring pigment suspension and other thixotropic properties associated with the paint and ink markets. The unique properties of organoclays give good...  

- Crystallinity of Coatings Based on Polyvinylidene Fluoride
Many thermoplastic polymers are semi-crystalline; that is, they consist of amorphous regions and crystalline regions. In the amorphous regions, the polymer chains exist in a random pattern; in the crystalline regions, the polymer chains are in a... (1 Member Reaction) 

- Beyond the Zahn Cup
The standard coatings method for reading batch viscosity usually involves a Zahn or Efflux cup (Figure 1). This tried and true method involves testing for kinematic viscosity by dipping the cup into the batch and filling it with material. The user...

- 2-Component Polyurethane Topcoats
Polyurethane coatings are used today as architectural coatings, product finishes, automotive coatings and industrial maintenance coatings, making them among the most versatile coating types available.1Polyurethane topcoats were introduced to the...

- Novel High-Solids Systems Based On Silicone-Epoxy Resins
Corrosion protection for industrial, industrial maintenance and marine markets can be an expensive and overwhelming task. Protecting objects such as oil platforms, bridges, storage tanks, steel structures, concrete walls and floors, and ship decks...  

- Go Green - Online Training Reduces Your Company's Carbon Footprint!
It is the duty of all responsible chemical companies to find ways to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible. In many cases this is easier said than done, but when it comes to training staff there is a simple solution - online training. As...

- New Anti-Fingerprint Coatings
Achieving oil and water repellency on surfaces is easily obtained with the use of fluoroalkyl-modified silanes. While perfluoroalkyl-modified silanes exhibit high static and advancing water and oil contact angles, their low receding contact angles...

- How to Formulate "Eco-Friendly" Anticorrosive Coatings
Currently, the challenges faced by the coatings industry are not just to reduce costs and improve performance but also to fulfill strict legal requirements. The so-called "Eco-Friendly" anticorrosive coatings used to contain high or even 100% solids...

- Building Façades with an Eye for Color and the Environment
What do colors mean to us? Colors fulfill several important functions. Colors are identifiers. They help us communicate, organize ourselves at work or at home, or move around in traffic. Colors also alert us. Signal colors attract our attention to...

- Green Nanotech New Buzz Word In Coatings
In 2007, environmentally conscious consumers turned to "green" products in every facet of their lives. Tips on "being green" and products to buy were everywhere - online, being reported on in broadcast news, incorporated into TV shows, and in...

- Forming Stable Polyallophanate Powder Coatings With Excellent Weathering Stability
Polyurethane powder coatings are known for excellent properties such as weathering resistance, superior flow characteristics, high flexibility and chemical resistance. The curing of polyurethane powder coatings proceeds by reaction between an...

- Novel Sag Control Agents for a More Robust Paint Application Process and Reduced Telegraphing
In order to obtain glossy coatings with a high-quality appearance it is necessary that surface irregularities created during paint application or during drying/curing of the paint level out sufficiently, while sagging problems are avoided. In this...

- Cure Characteristics of Cardanol-Formaldehyde Novolac Resins in the Presence of Metallic Driers
Most phenolic resins1-4 are prepared by reacting formaldehyde with phenols, which are considered to be toxic and harmful for the environment. Now, with increasing concern for environmental protection and, due to stringent regulations to ensure the...

- Uncle Sam Wants U.V.
For a long time, I've kept a well-measured distance from all programs involving space and the military. Probably because I am horrible at remembering acronyms. For me AOL is where I logon to get my e-mail, but at Goddard it stands for Airborne...

- Avoiding Viscosity Loss on Tinting
wo trends are evident in architectural paints today. Waterborne, or latex, paints continue to grow in use, and today's homes are increasingly being painted with deep, vibrant colors, both inside and out. While experience has shown that the best...

- Conquering Color Harmony
Meeting the demands of your customer is always challenging. Meeting the requirements of a premium car company such as BMW can be overwhelming. But apparently no challenge is too big for automotive components supplier Plastic Onmium and its team of...

- Alkyd Emulsion: A Powerful Technology for Low VOC Decorative Coating
For more than 50 years, alkyd resins supplied in white spirit have been widely used in the production of high quality decorative coatings. Recently there has been a move towards lower aromatic solvents and higher solids paints which provide the end... (1 Member Reaction) 

- New Technology to Accurately Measure and Characterize Effect Coatings
Uniform and consistent color is essential to achieve the impression of a high quality finish and to avoid customer complaints. Special effect coatings play a dominant role in automotive and other applications as they make an object "alive" and...

- Innovative Amine Curing Agents for Epoxy Resins
Recent advances in new amine functional curing agents have improved performance of waterborne two-package epoxy coating systems. These new amine adducts offer performance advancements along with the ability to meet low- and ultra-low VOC levels. This...

- Advancements in Novel Encapsulated Light Stabilizers for Waterborne Coatings
The exterior durability of most organic coatings is highly dependent upon the use of light stabilizers. The two main stabilizer categories are ultraviolet light absorbers (UVAs) and hindered amine light stabilizers (HALS). UVA chemical classes...

- A Success Story: High-Performance 2K Waterborne Coatings
Graffito (graffiti, plural) is a word that is simple in meaning - any design, or scribbled motto, etc., drawn on a wall or other exposed surface.1 Yet its simple meaning belies the incredible expense and sheer nuisance associated with its practice in...

- Patent Claim Reading for Technical Personnel
Most scientists become familiar with reading and writing technical documents such as research papers and reports at an early stage in their careers. Not so with patents, where skill in reading tends to come later in a career and after direct...

- America's New Coatings Show
The first American Coatings Show and Conference was held from June 2-5 at the Charlotte Convention Center in North Carolina. According to event sponsors NPCA and Vincentz Network, this premier event was very successful. The event sponsors chose...

- Antibacterial Dry Film Protection for Interior Coatings
The need for antimicrobial products to protect water-based coatings against bacteria, yeast, fungus and algae is well established in the coatings industry. For exterior coatings, the market has responded with appropriate, cost-effective...

- Silicon-Based Technology for the Coatings Industry - An Overview
Dow Corning Corporation is a leader in developing new Silicon-Based Technologies (SBTs) that advance the coatings industry and empower formulators to offer new functionality in various applications. In the past 10 years, the number of new patents...

- New Matting Agents for Waterborne Coatings and Varnishes
A good matte finish is often required in coatings formulations. In order to fully optimize this important parameter, Michelman has recently developed two wax dispersions: Michem® Guard 349 and Michem Guard 350. Both dispersions aid in imparting a...

- New Coating Technology Expands Color Choices for Vinyl Building Products
Since the mid-1990s, composite materials have made substantial inroads across the building products industry in the manufacture of windows, doors, trim and siding. The unprecedented strength and resilience of these materials, and their low...

- Improved Dirt Pickup Resistance Critical to Future Coating Innovation
This article focuses on the chemistry of dirt pickup resistance (DPR) and outlines what steps - including research, product development and testing procedures - need to be taken to provide the proper solutions. Dow Coating Solutions has ad-dressed...

- UV-Inkjet OLEDs - A New Technology
Polymertronics was set up in 2006 to develop technology to produce inkjet-printable, ultra-violet (UV) curable organic light-emitting diode (OLED) fluids. OLEDs that can be printed on standard UV-inkjet equipment have many advantages. They are much...

- Sustainability – The New Nano
A few years ago the coatings world was ‘nano' crazy. The term nano was everywhere. I didn't know what it really meant since there wasn't an agreed-upon definition of nano. Mostly it meant adding a little of something tiny to paint. It didn't matter...

- UV/EB Raw Materials Market
The UV ink market overall fared well in 2007, according to suppliers to the market. "We see the various segments of the energy cured ink market continuing to grow at a rate slightly greater than GDP in the both the EU and U.S. and at a generally...

- European Union's REACH Regulation
The EU's REACH regulation has a clear message: meet the requirements or you will not be able to produce in, export to, or market within the EU. Is your company able to meet this challenge? The new European Union chemicals regulation came into force...

- UV Inks and Coatings: Considerations for Plastic Substrate
Printing on plastic is a growing and challenging market for UV-curable inks and coatings. They have been successfully used for many years, but new opportunities arise daily that remind printers and formulators how difficult achieving adhesion can...

- Growth of UV/EB Inks Throughout Europe
Energy-curing inks are continuing to grow strongly in Europe, even though the graphics market as a whole is slowing down. The big challenge now facing the energy-curing sector is how to maintain the momentum. In Eastern Europe, sales of energy curing...

- Radcure Coatings Market: A Growing Market
The major trends in the global coatings industry revolve around environmental concerns and the reduction of VOC emissions, reducing energy costs, improving productivity and improving performance. These four factors are driving companies across all...

- The Future of UV Coatings is Now!
Can you think of any organization that has had 35 consecutive years of sales growth? A few come to mind that may fit that category, but you can count them on one hand. Statistics from past RadTech International shows indicate that the UV/EB...

- Diverse Applications for Crystalline Calcium Sulfonate Coating Systems in Challenging Environments
Petroleum sulfonates have evolved dramatically from their emergence as by-products of white mineral oil production to multifunctional products vital to modern industry and commerce. At the turn of the century, what we now call natural petroleum...

- Edge-Retentive and Solvent-Free Coating Based on a Renewable Raw Material
Phenalkamine curing agents, derived from the cashew nutshell liquid, provide outstanding anti-corrosion properties to epoxy coatings. The only way for a western company to maintain or possibly gain some market share is to be innovative, through...

- Sustainable Coatings: The Long Term View
Over the past few years, this series of technology reviews has dealt with many different aspects of coatings technology. Increasingly, it has become difficult to find subject areas of general interest which do not overlap extensively with something...

- Current Green Coatings Do Little to Protect the Environment
Every day within the United States new green initiatives are being proposed by politicians, celebrities and businesses. California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is supporting hybrid cars. Musician Sheryl Crow is supporting green bathroom...

- Advanced Process Intensification Brings Shear Genius To Pigment Dispersion
Dispersing pigments for paints and dyes increases the surface area of the product's ingredients by dispersing the solids or reducing their particle size. Advanced reactor-based technology can be used to achieve this. The principle works by using a...

- Risk Factor: Complementary Pigment Combinations
Several pigment combinations are suitable for the formulation of green color shades. For economic reasons, "complementary pigment combinations" are often used. These are green shades that are generated by mixing yellow and blue pigments. However,...

- Nano-Sanity: A Solution to the Coatings Dilemma
Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In these times of spiraling energy costs and increasing environmental concerns, that definition might be stretched to include using the same...

- LATEST NEWS OUT OF ASIA
It is not often that one can report on change of the scale that is taking place in Asia Pacific at the moment. Once in a lifetime events are shaping the global coatings industry as never before and it is not an easy task to try to do justice to the...

- Colloidal Microcrystalline Cellulose: A Unique Suspending Agent and Stabilizer for Waterborne Coatings
Colloidal microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) has been used widely in the food and pharmaceutical industries to suspend dense particles, prevent phase separation and stabilize emulsions. This study demonstrates that colloidal MCC has the same...

- Measurement and Instrumentation
The earliest measuring instruments used to evaluate wet and dry coatings were the human eye and hand. Today's instruments do more, do it faster and do it better, but terms such as thumb tack, touch dry and rubout serve to remind us of the old...

- Going Green With Akzo Nobel
Built at a cost of AUD 51 million and brimming with technical innovations, the new 10-story Melbourne City Council building - known as CH2 - has been awarded the first six star design rating from the country's Green Building Council. Because...

- Innovative Technology
For designers, the consumers' affinity for product differentiation is driving color customization in directions never before imagined. Until recently, the cost and logistics of mass color customization made it impractical from an OEM point of view....

- CEPE Gives Direction
The CEPE welcomed some 150 company representatives from the European paint and surface coatings industry to the Cote d'Azur in France, where it held its first annual conference and annual general meeting since restructuring. The small and...

- Waterborne Coatings for Furniture
The Italian-based ICA Group, located in Civitanova Marche, Italy, is a specialist in the manufacture of wood coatings. In collaboration with Giardina Officine Aeromeccaniche, it developed coating cycles that make it possible to achieve finishes that...

- Powder Coating
Recent Advancements for Industrial Plastics Applications

The growth of powder coatings has been dramatic during the last decade with new applications continually being developed, including plastics. Innovations in processes and materials have opened previously unimaginable opportunities. Although...  

- Modern Flexible Coating Lines: Optimized for Demanding Coatings
In the last few years, there have been some significant changes in the way companies do business. Gone are the days when business strategies were laid down to produce the same product for ten years. Today, companies do not plan as far ahead. The...

- Take a powder…
Powder coatings have evolved continuously for more than half a century (or much longer if we include cosmetic applications). The original system in which thermoplastic polyamide or vinyl powders are applied by fluidised bed is now reduced to a niche...  

- 'Smart' Inks and Coatings: An Alternative to Traditional Printing Methods
Over the past few decades, the printing industry has undergone a number of developments to existing techniques such as ink-jet and laser printing. Developments have focused on improvements to existing techniques rather than completely new...

- Interviews with Industry Leaders
This is the beginning of a new series featuring interviews with the global leaders of major paint companies and their suppliers focusing on innovation and trends in the coatings market. We also include some facts about the market in which the company...

- UV Coating - Overprintability and Adhesion Phenomena
PART II: Description of 4 Adhesion Phenomena
Recommendations of Raw material Suppliers and Conclusion

This is the second part of our article dedicated to UV-Coating and overprintability, in this part we present four other adhesion phenomena and recommendations of raw material suppliers for the design of overprintable varnishes. The conclusion gives a...

- Thinking outside the mould: coatings for plastics
Although (as shown below) there are a vast number of polymers that are collectively known as 'plastics', the majority have common features which make coating difficult. This article reviews some of the applications, problems and ever-improving range...

- Small Bead Milling Process Optimization
The development of products is usually conducted on laboratory scale equipment that is similar to that used in the plant. Once the customer accepts the sample, the last formula made is given to the plant to produce. This formulation is transferred to...

- Coatings: Powder on Plastics
Innovations in processes and materials open a new realm

When considering coating plastics, the first obvious question pops up. Why bother? By simply using pigmented resin one gets a molded-in color that can't scratch off and one that also eliminates the need for a finishing operation. The answer is...

- The Effect of Surfactant Selection on Emulsion Polymer Properties
The emulsion polymerization process has been discussed in a number of publications.1-9 The primary role of surfactants in emulsion polymerization is to lower the interfacial tension, which allows the emulsification of reactive vinyl monomers and the...

- UV Stabilization of Waterborne Coatings
Besides high efficiency, UV stabilizers have to meet some other basic, but most important requirements. To grant such high efficiency, perfect compatibility, that is excellent solubility in the film-forming binder, is a definite must. This requires...

- UV Coating - Overprintability and Adhesion
Part I: Introduction and Description of 4 Adhesion Phenomena

The Overprintability of UV-Coating and Inks is an important issue in the area of packaging and labeling, such applications like, ink printing, hot foil stamping, thermal transfer printing and glue-ability are concerned. UV-Coatings are known to be...

- Process Improvement and Six Sigma
The improvement process adventure starts when your manager walks in and says "we need to - fix the product, increase the yield of, and reduce the cost of. The time table for achieving the assignment is usually now or sooner. If you're lucky you have...

- Freeing the environment
The quest to produce environmentally friendly and low-toxicity coatings has generated many new types of coatings and modifications to existing systems. One broad (if slightly artificial) classification we could apply is that of 'free coatings':...

- Advantages of Multi-Speed Viscosity Testing for Coatings
Coatings manufacturers use various methods for quality assurance/quality control or QA/QC. The devices are simple and low-cost. Data usually consists of one point, giving what essentially is a "go/no-go" test. However, greater competition in the...

- High-Solids Alkyd Strategy
This article presents new possible approaches for alkyd resin architecture in order to comply with market constraints related to VOC emissions. Examples and performance of alkyd concepts are presented with regard to VOC content and performance for...

- R&H Enhancing Roadway Safety
It has been nearly 100 years since large-scale, production-line manufacturing made automobiles affordable for average Americans-and we haven't looked back since. 1. The U.S. interstate system consists of 3.9 million miles of public roads. 2. U.S....

- As good as new: automotive refinishes
If your car is damaged, you hope that (among other things) the bodyshop will be able to match both the appearance and the durability of the original finish on the repaired areas of bodywork. Yet in vehicle finishing, all the advantages lie with the...  

- Accept no (l)imitations: the evolving technologies of security printing
One of the unfortunate consequences of the digital revolution has been the greater ease with which all kinds of printed matter and manufactured goods can be counterfeited, and the greater speed with which international criminal activities can be...

- Walk this way: floor coating technologies
The term 'floor coatings' covers many technologies and applications whose main common property is a requirement for a hard-wearing, abrasion and scuff resistant surface. The primary types of floor which can or must be protected by surface coatings...

- Paint products: Accelerated stability and quality testing
Part I: Direct measurement of separation and segregation by multisample analytical centrifugation

To assure continued consumer satisfaction the following stability issues of paint products have to be minimized or avoided: 1. Syneresis - separation of the liquid dispersion media 2. Pigment segregation - change of colour composition inside a...

- Waterborne Polyurethane Coatings for Wood Floors – The Next Generation
New pathways were explored to make aqueous polyurethane dispersions without the co-solvent nmethylpyrolidone (NMP). This includes methods to process these materials with alternate cosolvents as well as with co-solvents that can be removed from the...

- Acrylic Hybrid technology
To design higher performance surface coatings, coating formulators must choose from myriad polymer chemistries. The polymer holds the coating cohesively (internally) together and adhesively (externally) to the substrate to which it is applied. Proper...

- Waterborne technology: its greatest limitation is your imagination
Waterborne paints have a long and successful history in certain niche applications (see this month's editorial), but the twin issues of environmental legislation and the low cost of water as a solvent have encouraged their much wider use. Today's...

- Skin-deep Beauty of Automotive Coatings
Most of us have a special "love relationship" with our cars much is to do with their aesthetic appearance. Shape, colour and surfaces contribute to a car's attraction in the show-room. This "love-relationship" with our car is not just for the...

- Coating Film Defects: backgrounds and how to prevent them
Film defects can ruin protective and aesthetical properties of coatings. A huge amount of time and money is invested in preventing and resolving them. By using knowledge that is simple and available a lot of hustle can be prevented. How to resolve a...

- Smaller, greener, cleaner: production technology changes direction
Not too long ago, coatings and their raw materials were produced by a limited range of long-established production methods. But in recent years new technologies have been studied and commercialised which are not merely significant improvements on the...

- Precision polymers
Coatings have traditionally been based on 'random' polymers, varying statistically in their molecular weight, degree of branching, and in the case of copolymers, the ratio between the different components. In recent years there have been...

- Use of Inherently Conductive Polymers in Coatings & Inks
Definition of Conductivity Conductivity is the measure of how well a material accommodates the transport of electric charge (conducts an electric current). Units In Ohmic material the resistance R is proportional to the length l of the sample and...

- Matching the market: new ways to sell paint
As observed in last month's Frontiers article, we usually buy paint either to protect substrates or to change their appearance. But it is also relevant to ask why we buy a particular brand or type of paint. The farther we are removed from a...

- New product development in coatings and inks: how does physical chemistry fit in?
Global coating and ink markets are in an innovative mood. The innovations are driven by environment, health, safety, quality improvement and cost reduction. Especially the regulations with respect to Volatile Organic Components (VOC) challenge...

- Photointiators Part 3: What’s New or May Be Coming?
Parts 1 and 2 of this series dealt with the chemistries of photoinitiators and formulations of UV cured systems containing such photoinitiators. Part 3 deals with some of the new products which are now on the market or are under active development by...

- Keeping in touch: the technology and applications of tactile coatings
Our main reasons for applying surface coatings are to protect substrates under a range of different circumstances and/or to change their appearance. But in a number of markets, 'tactile' coatings are used, whose physical texture, film thickness or...

- Nanowars: hygienic coatings fight dirt and disease
We spend our lives surrounded by (and carrying with us internally and on our skin) bacteria, fungi, algae viruses and other forms of microscopic life. Microbes comprise 80-90% of the Earth's total biomass, and even under 'clean' conditions we may...

- The Principles of Dispersion and Stabilization of Pigments
Product developers experience that the dispersion and stabilization of pigments and fillers in modern coatings and inks, like water-based, high-solids and powder coatings, is more challenging than in conventional solventbased systems. The dispersion...

- Photoinitiators for Coatings Applications
Part 2 - Which Photoiniator to choose?

The vast majority of the commercially available UV coating systems are based on free radical curing systems. A minority employ ionic curing processes but these will be left for a later article. The choice of photoinitiator for coating applications...

- Frontiers of coatings technology: Painting the sky
Coatings for today's ordinary commercial aircraft must cope with extreme service conditions. They may take off from searing desert heat, climb within minutes to a height of ten kilometres where temperatures fall to -55°C and where UV exposure...

- DMSO®-based paint strippers
DMSO-based formulations have been designed to substitute methylene-chloride based, classical strippers. Unexpected synergy effects have been obtained with ethers, giving efficiencies comparable to methylene chloride-methanol systems. An understanding...

- Smart coatings: communications out of a can
The term 'smart coatings', like 'nanotechnology' and many other fashionable technological terms, has no clear and recognised definition. The broadest possible scope is assumed by those seeking research funding or wishing to present papers at 'Smart...

- HSE review: September 2006
The second issue of this quarterly column highlights a number of conflicts in the way that HSE issues are interpreted. Some of this is all too familiar - as in the case of the REACH update - but some is unexpected and provides food for thought. The...

- Off-Diagonal Effects of Alkanolamines in Waterborne Coatings
Other than ammonia, alkanolamines play an important role as the primary evaporative neutralizing agents used in waterborne coatings. The adjustment of pH in waterborne coatings is important in order to maintain a stable pigment dispersion, minimize...

- Photoinitiators for Coatings Applications
Part 1 – A brief overview

Conventional thermoset coating formulations are thermally cured through crosslinking and polymerisation processes. Catalysts are often added to such formulations to initiate these curing processes. A disadvantage of thermoset coating formulations is...




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