sales and technical capabilities
throughout North and South
America, Europe, Australia,
China, Malaysia and India.
“We partnered with the Plasticolors’
team led by CEO Scott Becker to bring together these two complementary players
in the colorants industry,” said Timothy
Zappala, a partner at Arsenal and co-head
of the firm’s Specialty Industrials Group.
“Colortrend provides color systems to the
architectural and industrial coatings markets while Plasticolors is the leading
provider of custom pigment solutions to
thermoset plastics and industrial coatings
markets. The combination creates a leading independent global pigment dispersion
platform positioning the new company to
address the increasingly complex customer technical requirements in a multitude of applications and end markets.”
Scott Becker, who will lead Chromaflo
Technologies as CEO, brings a wealth of ex-
perience in the colorants marketplace.
“Chromaflo Technologies’ diverse manu-
facturing capability, broad base of tech-
nologies and strong customer focus by an
experienced team will enable us to meet
customers’ varied requirements on both a
local and global basis,” said Becker. “We
will be transferring Plasticolors’ technolo-
gies for the thermoset plastics markets to
the operations in Europe and Asia Pacific to
serve customers in these regions. Addition-
ally, the technologies developed for in-plant
tinting for industrial coating applications
will be made available in these regions.”
“Because of Arsenal’s deep expertise in
the specialty chemicals sector we were able
to complete this innovative transaction and
create Chromaflo Technologies,” said John
Televantos, a partner at Arsenal and co-
head of the firm’s Specialty Industrials
Group. “With this merger we have created
a company with the scale and range of
product technologies that has the immedi-
ate critical mass to be a leading global
player in the pigments dispersion market.”
Advanced Polymer Coatings
and Reactive Surfaces form
joint venture
Advanced Polymer Coatings (APC) and
Reactive Surfaces have agreed to combine
the marine coatings technology of Ad-
vanced Polymer Coatings with the surface-modifying additive technology of Reactive
Surfaces in order to offer an environmentally benign, bio-based, functional marine
coating to the maritime industry.
This line of marine coatings is designed
to meet or exceed efficacy of current marine
coatings. The companies are gearing up to
take advantage of the rapidly growing,
world-wide drive toward non-toxic, low
drag underwater vessel surfaces with a goal
of increasing “slip” through the water by at
least two percent over traditional coatings.
APC is a provider of coatings for marine
superstructure and tank coatings, including
its ChemLine and MarineLine coatings, and
with this venture will expand its lines into
marine coatings for submersed surfaces. Reactive Surfaces develops bio-based additives
designed to bring long-term, stable functionality to coated surfaces, including its
self-degreasing additive DeGreez, self-de-contaminating additive OPDtox and antimicrobial additive ProteCoat.
Testing will be accomplished using a
number of different bio-based additives in
a variety of polymer systems in different
marine environments, simulating both stationary structures and underway surfaces,
and culminating within twelve months
with on-ship testing.
The companies will be taking advantage of one of the most recent advancements in coatings technology that adds
significantly to the traditional role of a
coatings system—bio-based functionality.
Natural biomaterials, such as proteins and
peptides, provide an enormous resource of
functional additives that are non-persis-tent in the environment, non-toxic and renewable. By focusing on the unique and
specific properties of these biomolecules,
bio-based additives are being created
which will provide a new and innovative
function to marine coatings systems, including “recharge-ability” (changing or renewing functionality, without recoating).
Researchers develop rust-proof
steel using graphene-based
composites for non-toxic
coatings
University at Buffalo researchers are making significant progress on rust-proofing
steel using a graphene-based composite
that could serve as a nontoxic alternative
to coatings that contain hexavalent
chromium, a probable carcinogen.
In the scientists’ first experiments, pieces
of steel coated with the high-tech varnish
remained rust-free for only a few days
when immersed continuously in saltwater,
an environment that accelerates corrosion.
By adjusting the concentration and dispersion of graphene within the composite,
the researchers increased to about a
month the amount of time the treated
steel can survive in brine. Because brine is
an extremely harsh environment, the
coated steel’s survival time in the real-world would be many times longer.
The UB chemists leading the project
are Sarbajit Banerjee, PhD, an assistant
professor, and Robert Dennis, a PhD student. Their next step is to use a $50,000
grant from the New York State Pollution
Prevention Institute to enhance the
graphene composite’s lasting power, as
well as the quality of its finish.
Tata Steel, an international company
that has provided past funding for Banerjee’s projects, has been helping the scientists test larger sample sizes, Banerjee said.
Bringing the coating to the market
could not only benefit public health, but
also save jobs, said Dennis and Banerjee.
“Our product can be made to work
with the existing hardware of many fac-
tories that specialize in chrome electro-
plating, including job shops in Western
New York that grew around Bethlehem
Steel,” Banerjee said. “This could give fac-
tories a chance to reinvent themselves in
a healthy way in a regulatory environment
that is growing increasingly harsh when it
comes to chromium pollution.”
Graphene, the thinnest and strongest
material known to man, consists of a sin-
gle layer of carbon atoms linked in a hon-
eycomb-like arrangement.
The material’s hydrophobic and conductive properties may help prevent corrosion, repelling water and stunting
electro-chemical reactions that transform
iron into iron oxide, or rust, Banerjee said.
UB’s Office of Science, Technology
Transfer and Economic Outreach (STOR)
has submitted a provisional patent application to protect the coating Banerjee and
Dennis are refining. As sponsors of the re-
