Alongside the development of improved coatings, improved testing methods have emerged, whose usefulness ranges from vital necessity to 'solutions in search of a problem to solve'. Some of the technologies to emerge in recent years and some light which has been shed on correlating tests to the real world are reviewed in this month's Frontiers column...

From simple beginnings in the 1950s, powder coatings have developed into a well-established sector, holding about 8-10% of the industrial coatings market in most regions, but (according to market researchers IRL) close to 13% in Europe...

In the editorial Rheology Part 1, rheological aspects of coating systems were described. Coating properties influenced by rheological additives were categorized. In table 1.1 this categorization is once more provided. The selection of water based rheological additives (thickeners) was described in article Rheology Part 2. In this article the selection of solvent based rheological additives for each sub category, is further discussed...

This month's 'Frontiers' technology review considers some of the problems, solutions and specific markets for coatings applied to thermoplastics. The majority of plastics are used in short-term, low-cost, low-technology or purely practical applications and are uncoloured or bulk-coloured, but coatings may be applied for many different reasons...

The use of toxic materials in coatings has a history as long as the use of the word 'improved'. How could natural oils be made to dry faster, provide corrosion resistance, high whiteness and so on? Some of the earliest and simplest solutions were to use lead-based additives...

In the editorial Rheology Part 1, rheological aspects of coating systems were described. Coating properties influenced by rheological additives were categorized...

Vehicle painting has come a long way since Henry Ford famously announced that the customer could have a car in any colour he liked, so long as it was black. And refinish coatings have had to keep pace with changes to OEM coatings...

Counterfeiting today extends far beyond its original field of currency and documents, to pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, branded clothes and watches, software and electronic documents...

A new or renewed implementation of a tinting system is a major enterprise. In order to be able to make the best decision when choosing a tinting system it is very important to investigate and clearly register the needed performance parameters...

The ongoing development of high solids and waterbased coating systems has resulted in a broad range of rheological additives currently available for coating formulators...

Floor coatings are the subject of this month's technology column. A wide range of resin types are in use, the choice of system being dependent both on the substrate to be coated and the wear and spillages to which it will be exposed...

It is perhaps worth recalling that waterborne paints have a history as long as that of solventless ones and longer than that of solventbornes...

Dispensing systems have come a long way since their introduction half a century ago as a means of giving the customer any colour he wants (so long as it isn't black)...

This month's expedition to the frontiers of coatings technology considers those polymers whose physical structure is as important as their chemical composition. Collectively, they are referred to as Controlled Architecture (CA) polymers...

By way of a change from examining some of the stranger and more fascinating aspects of coatings technology, this month’s columns focus on the even stranger world of paint marketing. Marketing can be defined cynically as the art of persuading customers to buy products without regard to their objective benefits...

Why do we apply surface coatings? The usual and self-evident answers are to provide protection and/or modify the visual appearance of a substrate. In this column (and the next) I shall consider some quite different answers to this question...

The technologies and applications of hygienic coatings are discussed in some detail in the 'Coating frontiers' technology review which accompanies this editorial. But why do we need these systems at all...

In this month's 'Frontiers' technology review, developments in the mainstream aerospace markets are reviewed. Many of the trends in this highly demanding market are similar to those identified in other markets: pressure to meet stricter environmental regulations yet supply coatings with longer lifetimes, a wider range of colour and effect, and greater ease of application...

The choice of paint stripper facing today's user is based on a range of criteria including performance, cost, toxicity and environment...

In a fast-paced, globalizing market, coatings leaders with the ability to predict the future win. Facing heightened competition, more stringent performance requirements and environmental hurdles, savvy decision makers take advantage of new color technology to satisfy value-conscious customers and create business-energizing return on investment...

The term 'smart coatings' is one of the latest in a long list of fashionable terms to be used - and abused - to mean whatever you want it to mean...

Corwood Laboratories, Inc. announces their $13MM investment in Symex manufacturing and processing technology, the latest advancement in the company’s robust commitment to expanding its manufacturing and technical capabilities to customers, is already providing advantages.

China’s fast-growing economy has produced a few well-publicised environmental disasters and mining accidents with serious loss of life, but far more incidents never reach the mainstream Western media, and as for anything resembling a general overview...that is difficult to find...

Surfex has been established for many years as the UK's own coatings show - much smaller and more intimate than Germany's European Coatings Show or its counterparts in China and the USA, but with a valuable role to play in the industry...

This month’s technology review examines the question: When is a paint not a paint? The answer: when it’s a pre-formed dry film or appliqué, bonded to its substrate by heating or by adhesives...

The potential use of powder coatings has always had a significant allure to coil coaters. The currently used liquid organic and water borne coatings have created a number of constraints when attempting to enter new markets...

Welcome to what I and my colleagues in the SpecialChem team intend as the first of a regular quarterly series of columns drawing attention to some of the more interesting and significant developments in the to health, safety and environmental field...

The recent Ipex exhibition at Birmingham's NEC provided an admirable showcase for all that's best, most recent and most interesting in print technology, but the key reality which every printer, ink maker, machinery manufacturer and print buyer must face is: what does the market demand?

Nanotechnology has become a fashionable term in industry; researchers are quietly advised to rebrand their projects as nanotech whenever possible so as to access Government funding, and only unjustified bad publicity has protected us from seeing it in the supermarket as an excuse to raise prices...

Package printing is a dynamic market, maintaining rapid growth in developing economies and diversifying into more sophisticated and higher-value printing in mature economies. This is not only a matter of appearance, to attract consumers of rival brands to a new product, but of changing lifestyle habits.

Fluoropolymers and silicones are hugely useful in coatings and many other areas of industry, conferring unique surface and bulk properties, high resistance to damage, low surface energies, thermal resistance, unusual optical properties … the list of thing we cannot do readily without them is almost endless. An attempt has been made to illustrate their versatility in the coatings industry in the diagram - but this makes no reference to their many other specialised uses.

Coatings are designed to protect and defend their substrates, and the coatings industry has a remarkable history of being able to achieve this more and more effectively, despite the turning screw of legislation.

The loss of life – and profits – which can result from a major fire combined with stricter safety legislation ensures that the demand for fire-protective materials will continue to rise. Coatings are by no means the only weapon in the fight to minimise the damage and loss of life due to fire, but in many situations they are the most effective first line of defence...

Under the pressure of environmental regulations, the coatings industry has moved a long way from the brute-force approach of using toxic lead and chrome pigments to protect metal structures. Alongside established barrier pigments and the development of an ever-widening range of low-toxicity active anticorrosives, what once seemed the paradoxical approach of using rust-promoting water as the main solvent in anticorrosive coatings is increasing in scope, reaching even into the demanding areas of aerospace and offshore coatings.

Architectural coatings form the outer ‘skin’ of buildings made from many materials, and like human skin they must often resist rain and environmental contamination, while allowing internal moisture to escape. Modern architectural finishes are increasingly able to meet that challenge, where once the choice lay between impermeable solvent-borne coatings and too permeable waterborne ones...

With the adoption and implementation of VOC (volatile organic compounds) regulations, the coatings industry in the United States has changed significantly over the last thirty years. As pollution laws have evolved in other industrialized countries, similar changes have come about. The developers of standards, chemical suppliers and manufacturers should be applauded for meeting lower emission standards, though reluctantly at times. The progress in reducing VOC has been staggering. If someone had forecast today’s VOC standards thirty years ago, very few would have expected the industry achieving current standards.

Until 'nanotechnology' appeared on the scene to steal headlines (and research grants) dendrimers and their less disciplined relatives, hyperbranched polymers, were among the most talked-about developments in coatings research. Though some types are commercially available, commercial development is proving much slower than initial optimism predicted. Still, new ideas and applications are continuing to emerge, problems found with the earlier types are being resolved, and in the long run, they should transform the properties of radcure coatings in demanding applications.

Digital printing: you know it’s a convenient catchphrase, you know it’s eating into the market share of conventional printing, but what does the term actually mean? "A word means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less" said Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. And that’s the way the manufacturers of printing presses use the word ‘digital’...

Wood is all around us – sometimes disguised so that we do not recognise it, sometimes on the other hand as something looking like wood when it is not. Inside our homes, up to half of all furniture surfaces are now covered with some form of ‘synthetic’ finish such as laminates, melamine or PVC foils, but those can be applied to wood composites and may also attempt to present the appearance of wood...

The main issues which keep automotive paintmakers awake at night can be described as the four Cs: Cost, Corrosion, Compliance with legislation and Cosmetics.

'Necessity is the mother of invention' says an old proverb; so let's take a look at some recent innovations in radiation curing which were born to satisfy unusual necessities. Cellular or lattice-structured solids can be useful in biomedical applications, but complex 3-D structures like this cannot be produced by machining...

Gravure printing is a mature printing technology used for long printing runs, at high speed with an excellent printing quality. This editorial discusses Gravure Printing Technology and its evolution. It also describes the geographic localisation of the Gravure printers and its applications.

The ink consumption for the tissue market vary enormously, depending of the end use application but globally the average amount of ink is around 1.5 kg ink/ton tissue.This week's editorial discusses the trends in tissue printing and its end-use applications.

Man must have faced the problem of dispersion of pigments already in primeval times. This week's editorial views such problems and discusses the right selection of the pigment, solvent and vehicle combined with the right dispersion equipment for good and fast dispersion.

In this editorial the current trends in customer demands within specific printing market segments are reviewed.

Due to the organic nature of their principal elements (resin, thickener), all polymers are more or less biodegradable to some degree. This editorial discusses the use of biocides as an effective means of protection from biocorrosion.

Pre-historic people made their utensils smooth and shiny by using the sap of trees and plants. But the Japanese and Chinese invented the technique of producing real coatings. This editorial discusses the story of wood coatings.

What is the difference between Carbon Black and Pigment-Carbon- Black? This week's editorial discusses the properties of Pigment Carbon Black and their use in environment friendly coating systems.

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