regulatory and consumer demand for highly sustainable end-use products. These additives help formulators reach the highest
performance standards. Many of these additives have been on
the market for several years, and offer proven performance,”
Colon said.
According to Schaefer, Evonik Industries AG meets the needs
of customers looking for “green” technologies by developing,
producing and bringing to market products that improve the
resource efficiency of the final coated goods.
Wusik explained that Momentive Performance Materials Inc.
provides wetting flow and leveling agents that make it simpler
for customers to develop coatings with lower VOC technologies
without compromising performance.
New Products
To meet the needs of their customers, surfactants manufacturers are putting much emphasis on R&D and new product
development. For example, Troy has released several new products recently. Troysol Z372 is an addition to Troy’s Z Line of
performance additives. It is a high performance universal mar
and slip additive that also offers defoaming capability. Z372 is
engineered for solvent, solvent-free and aqueous systems, and
improves resistance properties, gloss, and surface appearance
in most systems. Troy also released Troysol Z370, a highly effective universal wetting and mar and slip additive. Z370 is a
siloxane co-polymer additive that can be used in solvent, water-reducible, and aqueous systems.
In addition to this, Troy released Troysol Z377 and Troysol
382. Troysol Z377 improves the flow and leveling of nonaqueous systems and enhances surface smoothness by stabilizing surface tension gradients upon application and during cure.
Troysol 382 is a multifunctional, silicone-free wetting additive
that promotes strong dynamic surface tension reduction in
aqueous systems, resulting in excellent wetting and application
characteristics.
Dispersogen PL 30 and Dispersogen PL 40 are two new product releases from Clariant. According to Ziebold, both products
are novel polymeric dispersing agents for organic pigments and
carbon blacks for use in waterborne pigment preperations with
low viscosity.
3M recently released new anionic surfactants for waterborne
paints and coatings applications and new fluorochemical polymers for paints, coatings additives and porous surface sealers,
explained Hanson.
Dow Coating Materials launched Ecosurf LF series low foam,
readily biodegradable, non ionic surfactants offering excellent
wetting and dynamic surface tension reduction and cloud point
defoaming for paint and coating applications.
Evonik Industries AG released TEGO Wet 240 and TEGO
Twin 4100, substrate wetting and anti-cratering additives
that enable coatings and printing inks to uniformly wet even
low energy or contaminated substrates and make a perfect
finish possible. Surface defects such as cratering and poor
flow and leveling are minimized. The siloxane based multi-
functional surfactant, TEGO Twin 4100, can be used for
optimal substrate wetting and anti-cratering. TEGO Wet 240
is used for excellent substrate wetting of spray-applied wa-
terborne coatings.
Future Research and Development
For the surfactant market, the trend seems to be on constant
innovation and expanding products.
Ziebold said that Clariant’s focus lies in expanding its product range in the area of emulsion polymerization for architech-tural paints and anti-corrosion additives for industrial coatings.
Brown explained the future for Dow Coating Materials
would focus on advanced wetting additives for waterborne industrial applications.
Fan explained that for 3M, the future focus would be on
innovative fluorochemical surfactants for interior and exterior
architectural paint applications, which will deliver new high-performance benefits, as well as innovative fluorochemicals that
deliver easy-clean properties to non-porous surfaces, including
glass, plastic and other substrates.
Solvay will continue to expand their broad surfactant line
in meeting customer’s sustainable product requirements in both
emulsion polymerization and coatings formulations.
“Our primary focus is to service our customer’s ‘greener’
technology needs, while providing high-performance and cost-effective technologies,” Mawson said.
Singhal explained that Ashland Specialty Ingredients’ focus for the future is collaborating with customers and developing new surfactants that support the lower-VOC odor
formulation needs of the market, while still maintaining
high performance standards.
Momentive Performance Materials Inc. continues its focus
on environmentally responsible formulations as well as bringing
products that deliver broad formulation, according to Wusik. CW
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