Dispersions Market Ripe
With Growth Opportunities
Suppliers to this
market are seeing
increases in sales
and profits.
by Sean Milmo
European Correspondent
milmocw@rodpub.com
In terms of mergers and acquisitions, re- structuring, portfolio changes and invest- ment projects, one of the most active
sectors in the European coatings supply chain
is dispersions.
Despite a slow growth in demand for coatings, dispersion producers have been able to
achieve relatively strong increases in sales in recent years backed by double-digit profit margins.
Now they face the challenge of being able to
exploit their technological know-how to maintain
the rise in sales with continued high profitability.
The dispersions or preparations sector, which
covers pigments and binders or a combination
of both, is benefitting from the trend towards
micronized and nano scale ingredients.
Pigments dispersion producers in particular
are able to take advantage of a specialist knowledge in how to make the best use of particle size,
shape, surface structure and distribution.
As dispersion makers extend the scope of
their activities further down the value chain,
they are leaving coatings companies with fewer
process steps to be carried out before the manufacture of the paint is completed.
At a time when in the face of rises in raw material prices, coatings companies are wanting to
reduce their production costs, dispersion suppliers
are able to help to simplify the making of paints.
They have been helping coating producers
comply with new environmental regulations, especially those imposing restrictions on emissions
of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This can
require not only the application of waterborne
binder dispersions but also pigment dispersions,
which are compatible with them.
“(Our) pigment dispersions support the need
of coatings companies for water-based and low-VOC formulations with solvent-free preparations,” said Thomas Sommermann, head of
technical services and development colorants at
Lanxess, a German-based speciality chemicals
company. “Our dispersions enable formulators
to meet today’s demanding ecological require-
ments with their final products.”
With pigment dispersions or preparations, in
particular, there are plenty of opportunities for
specialist suppliers to make life easier for coat-
ings companies, especially those with small to
medium-sized plants.
“Customers with large plants will tend to do
their own dispersions because it would be uneconomical to do otherwise,” said Gerd Koenig,
vice president, global market and sales for the
coatings business of Clariant, one of Europe’s
largest pigment producers, which has been expanding its dispersion operations.
“But for customers with small or medium-
sized coatings plants it is much easier to buy
dispersions, which is why we are currently see-
ing higher growth in demand for our disper-
sions than our coatings pigments,” he said.
“For coatings producers, dispersing pigments
has become more and more difficult, complex
and time consuming.”
One of the most intricate parts of the disper-
sion process is the milling and grinding of ag-
glomerates of pigments to separate them so that
they can be reduced to microscopic- sized pri-
mary particles which must be stabilized to pre-
vent them coming together again.
“Milling now requires a lot of know-how
about how to use the equipment properly and
what additives to apply for the right distribution of the particles,” said Koenig.
Particle size and distribution can now determine the color intensity and key resistance properties of the paint. As a result dispersion supply
has become an increasingly customized business,
which requires production to be located close to
customers and the provision of technical support services.
Dispersion operations have also been moving steadily closer to the end-user. Clariant, for
example, expanded its presence in the tinting
segment with the acquisition last year of Italt-into of Italy, which produces tinting systems, including dispensing machines, color-matching
software and paint mixers.
But unlike other dispersion producers like
BASF of Germany, which is also backward integrated into pigments manufacture, Clariant
