High Performance & Special Effects Pigments
August 2015 www.coatingsworld.com Coatings World | 39
Increased Costs, Increased Performance
According to Baker, raw material prices are heavily dependent
on Chinese sources, which have a relation to the U.S. dollar.
“This has put a significant squeeze on margins for dollar-
based producers,” he said. “While we are mitigating some of
the cost increases with long term RM contracts and purchasing
strategies, the industry is feeling the effects of this squeeze.”
In spite of the high prices, Baker maintained that the invest-
ment in high performance and specialty pigments is a smart one.
“High performance, as the name implies, means they perform
better in processing and/or application with heat, light fastness,
chemical resistance, etc.,” he said. “The significant change in the
market place is that the higher performance products are com-
ing down in price, and as a result are expanding their share of
the pigment portfolio as they displace some mid and classical
performance products.”
Orlowski agreed that costs associated with high performance
pigments are worth it when considering the advanced properties of-
fered. “Light and weather fastness, opacity and heat stability, which
are often vital depending on the customer’s end application,” he said.
Moving forward, Baker said that high performance pigments
will continue to encroach on the mid- and classical-market prices.
“As they do,” he said, “there is an inevitable displacement of those
inferior chemistries to some degree. Therefore, HPP’s are finding
inroads to non-traditional markets such as architectural coatings,
industrial coatings, plastics, and even some inks markets.”
The pigment market is highly competitive and Lansco Colors
said it is controlling costs while continuing to maintain the high
product quality and on-time-delivery our customer expect.
“High performance pigments are necessary in applications and
end uses which require better durability, heat stability, migration resistance or other attributes not found in the lowest cost pigments,”
said Lavieri. “High performance pigments also bring attributes to
a coating, plastic or ink which saves money. For example repainting a house each year is more expensive than using paint made
with the Lansco Colors high performance pigments with longer
light and weatherfastness. As another example most plastic parts,
especially the food packages found in your grocery store, could not
be colored with conventional pigments due the high temperatures
used in plastics manufacturing. Finally high performance pigments
are alternatives to more regulated conventional pigments so they
are replacing them in sensitive end uses as well.”
New Products and Technologies
Trust Chem has recently launched following new high performance pigments: PR202 and PV19 for automotive, industrial
coatings and plastic applications. PBr25 for automotive and
plastic applications has been introduced as well as PO67 and
PY185 for powder coatings applications.
“We are continuing to develop new products in our research
and development laboratories in China to serve the global pigment market,” Orlowski said.
Baker, of Sudarshan, said that the industry has not seen a new chro-
mophore since the introduction of DPP chemistry in the early 1990’s.
“However, Sudarshan continues to develop improved
processing functionality of many of its core HPP range, in-
cluding: PR264 for Coatings, PO64 for Plastics, PY110 for
Coatings, PV23 for Plastics, etc.
Lansco Colors has brought several new high performance
pigments to market recently. “We are particularly excited about
Lansco 2093 Disazo Yellow 93 and 1242 Disazo Scarlet 242,”
said Lavieri. “Both of these pigments are alternatives to former
protected monopolies. Lansco 2093 is a green shade transpar-
ent yellow with excellent durability properties ideally suited for
the coloration of synthetic carpet fibers and other applications
requiring long term durability. Lansco 1242 has similar proper-
ties in the yellow shade red color space. We also have recently
launched a high performance inorganic pigment, LANOX
Synthetic High Temperature Black Iron Oxide, which has heat
stability of 1300 oF and high color strength. We are promoting
this pigment for automotive and gas grill coating applications.”
Sun Chemical has launched a number of new products. Fanchon
Orange 36 high performance pigments for coating and ink applica-
tions have a high level of opacity and durability capable of replac-
ing lead-based pigments in industrial mono-coat applications.
Sun Chemical’s new yellow shade Perrindo Maroon 179 features the benchmark transparency that is vital to producing modern, high chromatic metallic red finishes, the company stated. One
of the most yellow pigment red 179 shades on the market, Perrindo
Maroon 179 offers excellent light and weather fastness, rigorous
process and quality control, compatibility in water- and solventborne systems, and is easy to disperse. The intense color of Sun
Chemical’s red shade Quindo Violet 55 is 10 units more chromatic
than a similar shade Pigment Violet 19, thus expanding the styling
color gamut for coatings formulators, the company stated.
Sun Chemical introduced new fine particle size aluminum
flakes to its Benda-Lutz MAXAL EC range. The two new
products offer a superior level of brightness that is unusual
for their small size, while providing the same stain resistance
offered by the line’s state-of-the-art EC encapsulation technology. Benda-Lutz MAXAL EC encapsulated pastes add
enhanced gassing stability in waterborne paint and provide
superior resistance to alkali and acid staining without impacting the optical properties of the base aluminum flake,
for a wide variety of applications including the coating of
automotive parts and accessories and outdoor architectural
coatings in powder and liquid paints. CW
