Coatings World - October 2012

B&W Pigments
Black and White
Pigments Market
Carbon black and titanium dioxide pigments manufacturers share their latest offerings.
by Kerry Pianoforte, Associate Editor

Black and white pigments are key components of many coatings formulations. Over the past few years, black and white pigments makers have seen their fair share of down time, but manufacturers Coatings World spoke with reported some small gains.

Carbon black pigments are used in formulations to help absorb UV light and impart durability to a coating. They are used in a wide variety of applications including automotive, decorative and industrial coatings.

“Carbon blacks are used for many reasons in coatings,” said Josh Prenetal global segment manager for coatings at Cabot Corp. “The most common use is for pigmentation, which can be split into masstone and tinting. In masstone applications, the end product is a jet black coating. Black automotive basecoats are a good example here. For all other non-black applications, carbon black is used as a tinting aid. Even white paints often have a very, very small amount of carbon black in them to reduce the brightness.

“Carbon black is also added to coatings to make them more
conductive,” said Preneta. “In plastic primers applied to auto-
motive bumpers, the function of the carbon black is to make the
coating slightly conductive, so that subsequent layers of coating
can be deposited via electrodeposition. Carbon black also helps
with the dissipation of static in the concrete floor coatings ap-
plied to the floors of electronics fabrication facilities. Carbon
black is also used for its inherent opacity. It is added to the back-
side of the coverglass in touch-screen devices to black light. In-
side the display, it prevents light from ‘bleeding’ from one pixel
to the next, effectively enabling high resolution displays.”
Demand for carbon black pigments has been flat for the past
year with some slight gains expected.

“Small gains or returning business has kept our business
slightly better than 2011,” said John Erbeck, product line man-
ager, inkjet products, energy curable dispersions, carbon black dis-
persions at Emerald Materials. “We believe this trend will continue
into 2013. Offering high quality products to the market is key to
our success. We offer highly dispersed products that allow our cus-
tomers the formulating latitudes needed to be competitive.”
According to Erbeck, because use of carbon black pigments in
coatings is a relatively small segment, there are availability and
supply issues. “The coatings and graphic arts markets remain a
minor user when compared to rubbers markets and this con-
stricts the availability of carbon to our markets and in some cases
allocations of supply,” Erbeck said. “Emerald Performance Ma-
terials has been well situated with our carbon supply and have
not seen any major issues in our supply due to our planning and
forward thinking procurement teams working hand in had with
our sales group. The major markets for Emerald Performance
Materials remain the coatings and graphic arts industries.”
Raw material prices are also another key issue for carbon black
manufacturers. “Changes in oil prices have been a fact of life,” said
Erbeck. “In this highly competitive carbon dispersions product line,
we must find ways to recover the cost increases. To what extent we
can offset increases through productivity improvements, raw ma-
terial substitution and end-performance enhancements, that is al-
ways a given. Would these potentially ‘move the need’ for us and
our customers? We continually dialogue with our customers re-
garding expected changes in the market and continuing to provide
them high quality products to meet their needs.”
Titanium dioxide is used as a safe, non-toxic ingredient in paints,
coatings, plastics and paper and is a very efficient way of providing

PPG signs agreement for titanium dioxide
technology with a China-based company

PPG Industries has signed a memorandum of understanding with Henan Billions Chemicals Co., Ltd. by which PPG will license certain chloride-based technologies to Billions for use at Billions' titanium dioxide (TiO2) refinement facilities in China. In addition, PPG has signed a long-term purchase agreement for titanium dioxide with Billions. PPG intends to use the chloride-based TiO2 manufactured by Billions for various end-use applications, including paints and other coatings. The TiO2 also would be available for sale to third parties. PPG previously manufactured titanium dioxide using the chloride process at its chemicals facility in Natrium, W. Va., and sold titanium dioxide pigment for coatings and other end-use applications. Titanium dioxide is a raw material widely used in the paint and coatings industry as a pigment to provide hiding, durability and whiteness characteristics.