Surfactants Market Update
also compatible with new green resins
based on renewable sources as well as
UV curable coatings.”
“Paint and coatings based on latex
produced by emulsion polymerization
are essentially water-based so by their
very nature are essentially ‘green alternatives’ to solvent or UV technologies,”
said Maureen Mackay, global marketing
manager speciality additives, Cytec
Industries. “Effectively, only small steps
can be taken to make such products
greener. Examples of these could be more
biodegradable surfactants and improved
processes to reduced energy consumption and waste generation.
“While all of Air Products’ surfactants, dispersants and defoamers have
been designed to perform in waterborne coating systems, our most recent
surfactant technology has been specifically tailored to help our customers
meet their environmental requirements,” said Meier.”
EnviroGem surfactants are all capable of providing efficient wetting while
also acting as coalescing surfactants.
“This means that, when used at typical
surfactant use levels, they lower the
minimum film formation temperatures
(MFFT) of the coating, and enable better
film coalescence,” Meier added. “By
using EnviroGem surfactant in the coating formulation, a paint manufacturer
should be able to reduce the level of coalescing solvent used and thus lower
VOCs of the coating. We have also introduced our Carbowet surfactant product
line that has been designed to provide
environmentally-preferred alternatives
to traditional alkylphenol ethoxylate-containing surfants.”
Ciba Corporation has also been working on environmentally compliant surfactant products. “These novel surfactants have applications in compliant
coatings sectors such as waterborne, UV
and powder coatings,” said Bernadette
Corujo, director, NAFTA marketing,
coatings, Ciba Corporation. “Ciba’s products are listed under the EFKA trade
name. The chemistries include controlled free radical polymerization; reactive polyacrylates, polyacrylates,
polyurethanes, FAME (fatty acid modified emulsions), polysiloxanes, 100%
actives and zero VOC technologies.”
NEW PRODUCTS
Air Products recently launched EnviroGem 360 surfactant as a low foam
superwetter for plastic wood and other
industrial coatings applications. It also
launched Carbowet 106, 109 and DC01
for the architectural coatings market.
“EnviroGem 360 functions as a superwetter and provides excellent substrate
wetting and flow and leveling benefits in
addition to its ability to lower the MFFT
of the coating,” said Meier. “Carbowet
surfactants were designed to offer better
performance attributes that are equal to
or better than those of traditional octy-pheol and nonylphenol ethoxylates,
allowing customers to formulate away
from this increasingly undesirable
chemistry. “
Ciba offers EFKA 4310, a high molecular weight dispersant for organic pigments. The product is based on Ciba’s
proprietary controlled free radical polymerization process. EFKA 4310 offers
improved dispersion at reduced grinding
time. According to the company, this
product has excellent performance with
carbon black, quinacridone, Cu-Phthalo-cyanine blues and perylene pigments.
EFKA 2580 is a new silicone-based
defoamer for water-based systems. It is
easy to incorporate into the coating
and has broad compatibility and augments EFKA 2550.
Cytec Specialty Additives has
focused its efforts on the development
of two new surfactants, Aerosol EF-800
and EF-810. Both of these products are
APE-free and are biodegradable. “Both
products are designed for acrylic,
vinyl-acrylic and styrene acrylic coatings formulations,” said Mackay. “The
products represent a viable option for
customers looking to formulate coating
systems that are APE-free. The products are especially efficacious in
hydrophilic monomer-based systems.”
Cytec is also focusing its efforts on
Aerosol A- 22 surfactant, which has
demonstrated the ability to impart
enhanced pigment/filler compatibility
allowing easier formulating providing
improved water resistance, hiding,
color developments and shelf stability
to coatings formulations.
Recently, OMG has introduced two
polymer PU-based wetting agents,
100% active matter, one available for
waterborne and UV coatings, the other
one for solventborne coatings. “Both
are highly efficient with difficult pigments like organic red and carbon
black,” said Parkerson. “We have also
introduced two new flow agents that
bring slip and air release to high performance waterborne coatings.”
OMG recently launched dispersing
agents, Borchi Gen 0754, 100% active
dispersing agent for organic pigments
and Borchi Gen 0755, superior dispersing agent for carbon black in solvent
based coatings. Flow and air release
agents include Borchi Gol LA 232- high
slip agent for high performance coatings, 100% active and Borchi Gol LA 50-
substrate wetting additive for high performance, 50% in DPnB. Products for
new industrial coatings applications
Borchi Gen 0451,100% active very good
for organic and nano particles, Borchi
Gol 0011- 98% solvent free, good for
high solids coatings including poly
ureas and poly aspartic esters amd
Borchi Gol LA 200- Flow and dearation
of 2K waterborne PUR, 100% active.
The Ecosurf EH line of surfactants is
Dow’s latest addition. “Ecosurf EH surfactants are a new line of specialty surfactants designed to help customers
meet rising expectations for performance and convenience while complying
with more stringent environmental
expectations and safety regulations,”
said Sedeno. “These new patent protected, non-ionic surfactants provide superior performance benefits in many formulations over many other, commercially available alternative surfactant
chemistries. These advantages are particularly evident in applications such as
hard surface cleaning, textile processing, paint and coatings and agrochemicals where good wetting is a determining property in surfactant use.” CW
