Coatings World - May 2009

Business Corner

STRATEGIES & ANALYSIS BY PHIL PHILLIPS, PH.D.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR PHILLIPS@CHEMARKCONSULTING.NET

High heat resistant coating systems
A look at the
global market
for high heat
resistant
coating
systems.
The second
of a two-part
series.

In the April issue of Coatings World we discussed Heat Resistant Coatings (HRC) applications; the importance of pigmentation and the market size and growth rates. We separated the applications by cure mechanisms, resin species, number of coats and filler types. We also segmented the regional share of market into four with NAFTA being the largest followed by Europe, China and South America and the types of coatings, with liquid occupying 86% and powder the remaining 14% of the global market for HRC’s.

FOUR TYPES OF HRCS

The salamander is a type of lizard that is said in mythology to have been able to live in fire, cooling itself with its breath. Coatings which achieve similar effects are more reliable, and are found in several related yet distinct applications:

• High-build surface insulation coatings for industrial use and to improve the thermal efficiency of older buildings;

• Heat-reflecting (using IR-reflective pigments, not necessarily high-build) coatings, particularly useful for roofing systems in hot climates;

• Coatings resistant to high temperatures during service; and

• Coatings which retard the spread of fire or minimize fire-related damage to structures.

For this article, we are concerned with the technologies used in the last system only.

FIRE-RETARDANT COATINGS High-temperature coatings are required to protect metal surfaces such as barbecues, cookers, non-stick cookware, engine components, boilers, vehicle exhausts and even the working parts of rockets from oxidation over an extended period. These materials are usually liquid coatings, but powder coatings have also been developed which will resist tempera-

tures above 450°C, sufficient for most of the applications listed above.

Fire-retardant coatings, on the other hand, are the latent ‘emergency response systems’ of the coatings world. With luck, in most applications, their performance will never be tested and they will simply have to function as decorative, protective or anticorrosive finishes. They may or may not encounter high temperatures during normal service. Some, indeed, cannot tolerate high service temperatures, since their protective action depends upon controlled degradation in fire situations.

All types of surfaces may require protection against damage by fire, most obviously wood and steel. It is not possible for coatings to provide indefinite protection against severe fires, but delaying the spread of fire, or maintaining the integrity of a structure against fire for periods of 30 minutes to four hours is possible. That greatly increases the time people have to escape and gives firefighters more opportunity to limit the extent of damage.

The application areas are generally either industrial or institutional, for example:

• Protecting people, in fire escape routes in large buildings;

• Protection of structural steelwork against collapse, interiors of ships; and

• Manufacturing plants in the chemical industry and other high fire risk businesses.

It has been noted that the flammability of ordinary decorative coatings can be quite low, simply because the high levels of inert filler retard combustion of the binder system. However, where some form of ‘active’ fire protection is sought, a number of distinct approaches can be used, alone or in combination, to increase the levels of substrate protection that a coating provides.