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News and Trends at the Show
LOWER VOCS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Brian Neal,
Director,
Marketing &
Sales,
Malvern
Minerals
Joe Mulvey,
Technical
Development
Director,
Brenntag
Specialties, Inc.
Carl Yerger,
President,
Custom Milling
and Consulting
Dr. Brij Mohal,
Vice-President
Marketing and
Technology,
Chromaflo Tech-
nologies Corp
James DeGroff,
Managing
Partner,
Formulator &
ColorTec
Software
H What will be the latest news and
trends at the American Coatings SHOW
2014? We asked five exhibitors about
their expectations and two topics were
dominant: Lower VOCs and sustainability.
“We see various trends, such as:
– Coatings with the same or better per-
formance using bio-based, sustain-
able raw materials, provided cost is the
same or a very small premium.
– Lower VOC alternatives and moving to-
wards no, or very miniscule emissions.
– Improved performance of 100% solids
high-performance systems.
–Coatings based on proven safe-han-
dling raw materials.
–Lower temperature curing materials
while maintaining high performance.
– Single package coatings with 2 pack-
age performance.”
“Compliance with the new GHS, OSHA,
SDS and labeling requirements.”
“From a supplier’s viewpoint, I believe
there will be interest and discussion
around the performance advantages of
using a treated filler vs. a non-treated
filler. In treatment, I am referring to sur-
face modification of mineral fillers or
“pre-treating” with silanes. This is not
a new concept, but many formulators
haven’t seen or heard much from this
field in decades.
Also, I believe governmental regula-
tions to drive manufacturers to pro-
duce coatings with lower VOCs will still
be a vibrant topic. Methods to achieve
performance while reducing VOCs are
under continuous R&D. Ultra high sol-
ids coatings are important within our
industry. With the boom in oil and gas,
chemical and corrosion-resistant coat-
ings that can withstand the harshest
environments, while lowering VOCs,
will drive new R&D.”
“Our view is from the eyes of an equip-
ment manufacturer. Global sourcing of
raw materials is vital for paint, coating
and ink companies to stay competitive
in their market. Global sourcing does
mean manufacturers will need to deal
with raw material quality variability,
which will need to be managed in the
final product quality output from these
manufacturers. We believe manufactur-
ers of paint, coatings and inks, will not
only look at equipment to manage prod-
uct quality. They will also require new
processing techniques as to how ma-
chinery is used to produce repeatable
and reliable finished product.” “The trends will be the continuation
of the move to VOC compliant materi-
als in the coatings industry. In addi-
tion, innovative color palettes that take
advantage of selected high performing
colored pigments will be part of the con-
tinuing trends.”
“Beginning to See a Shift in Thinking
towards Sustainability Concepts”
THE COATINGS INDUSTRY IS CHANGING AS IT IMPLEMENTS SUSTAINABILITY
H Dean Webster, NDSU, says that we
are only at the beginning of what may
be a major era of sustainability. After
these initial stages, we still have to
develop quantification options and
potential applications.
Dean Webster,
North Dakota
State University
(NDSU)
Bio-based, VOC-free, renewable, life-
cycle-assessment, CO2 footprint – what
do you consider to be a sustainable
coating?
Dean Webster: Improved sustainability
is a broad term which can be addressed
by a number of approaches, including using bio-based or renewable raw
materials, reducing the CO2 footprint,
reducing or eliminating VOCs, and also
increasing the service lifetime of a coating. Life-cycle assessment is needed to
help validate the sustainability of any
given approach and also involves factors such as energy and water usage
and the end-of-lifetime scenarios. Today, sustainability is best measured in
comparative terms with existing technology, although various metrics for
measuring sustainability are currently
being debated.
Which coating area do you think is
leading the sustainable approach?
Dean Webster: Today, I would suspect
that radiation curing might be leading
in terms of sustainability, due to the low
energy demand for curing and general
lack of VOCs. However, we are seeing
a lot of activity in all coatings areas in
developing resins based on renewables,
reducing curing time and temperature,
and in extending the useable lifetime of
a coating system. The landscape in five
years may be totally different than it is
today.
Do you think sustainable coatings
chemistry will lead to a change as big
as the one that waterborne technology
reached?
Dean Webster: I think at this time we are
just beginning to see a shift in thinking
towards sustainability concepts, and it
is difficult to
predict what
the ultimate
consequenc-
es will be.
In terms of
coatings performance, replacing a petrochemical
with a bio-based version of the same chemical won’t change
the performance. However, focusing on
deriving new chemical building blocks
from renewable raw materials can potentially open up entirely new classes of
chemicals that cannot be obtained from
petrochemicals, and they can be used to
build coatings systems, leading to completely new performance profiles.
