Surfactants
The Surfactants Market
Coatings World recently spoke with a number of surfactant suppliers to the coatings
industry regarding the state of the market. Among the topics discussed were raw material
costs, “green” chemistry and opportunities for growth.
by Kerry Pianoforte, Associate Editor
Coatings World: What do you think are the primary issues fac-
ing the surfactants market today?
Carsten Bauman, director, global marketing – emulsion poly-
merization surfactants, Cognis North America: One of the major
issues in the surfactant markets today is dealing with heavily fluc-
tuating raw material costs, e.g. crude oil or renewable oil prices.
Another issue is the increasing customer interest in products that
do not harm the environment, and the need for eco-friendly sur-
factant solutions that still deliver top performance. At the same
time, the surfactant markets are very cost sensitive, meaning that
the surfactant solutions should help customers control their total
costs. This is especially true in sophisticated technical applica-
tions such as emulsion polymerization, where the surfactants
play a key role for the final performance of the formulation. Cus-
tomers realize that this can be achieved best by using high qual-
ity surfactants with a proven track record of consistent quality
and supply chain reliability, which helps avoid the need for un-
necessary process adjustments and delays.
Maureen Mackay, global marketing manager, specialty additives,
Cytec Industries: Like all markets surfactants are facing increased raw material costs and this is expected to be a major
www.coatingsworld.com
March 2011
