Reduce Surface Tension

With today's trend in water-based low-VOC coatings, surface tension reduction is critical for application and good film formation, as high surface tension may cause film defects (craters, fish eyes, pin holes, orange peel, and poor thin film control).

Capstone^® fluorosurfactants provide multifunctional performance above and beyond existing hydrocarbon and silicone based surfactants. They show unique properties in reducing surface tension and in solving these surface defects. Combined with their traditional role as wetting agents, using Capstone^® fluorosurfactants in your paint formulation leads to Improved Film Quality and allows you to achieve:

better wetting (improved intercoat adhesion, and the ability to wet out low energy surfaces)
better leveling (improved gloss, and reduced "orange peel", or decreased incidence of Benard cells)
better antiblocking (the tendency of glossy paints to stick to themselves)
less cratering (an effect due to the presence of surface imperfections or contaminants)
open-time extension for low-VOC paints

Capstone^® fluorosurfactants work very well with different sheen levels of latex paints, even with deep-based paints.

Surface tension of equal cost surfactant usage in DI water

With $0.02 of Capstone^® fluorosurfactant alone, surface tension was reduced below 20 dynes/cm.

The above chart shows surface tension reduction in DI water of hydrocarbon surfactants alone and mixtures of hydrocarbon surfactants with Capstone^® fluorosurfactant at an equal cost basis. This experiment was run with two hydrocarbon surfactants and one fluorosurfactant. At $0.02 per pound cost of surfactants, the hydrocarbon surfactants alone were less effective than using $0.01of hydrocarbon surfactant and $0.01of Capstone^® fluorosurfactant.

Recommended Capstone^® grades are available in the product selection page.

Download Comparative Formulation Examples!