Pigments Market Update
“Since company resources remain relatively low, these prod-
ucts must be virtual drop-ins for their current products,” he said.
“Many companies do not have the available resources to re-
match their color palettes. So, we have been able to utilize avail-
able pigments from many sources to create a colorant system
that meets the needs of our customers.”
Specific to the automotive industry, BASF’s Crosby said that
designers are always seeking new color spaces and novel effects
to differentiate their vehicles.
“Pigments with ever-higher chroma, saturation, and trans-
parency are desirable without sacrificing required appearance,
light fastness, and weathering performance,” he added.
Forsythe added, “The most important performance attribute
is quality. Product quality and consistency from batch to batch
is paramount to our customers’ success. BASF holds a strong
position in the market ensuring quality and performance with
technical back up, supply reliability and innovation.”
New Products
Pigments suppliers are introducing new products in order to
meet customer demands and requirements. Here is a sample of
just a few available in today’s market:
BASF: Dragon Gold is new addition to the Lumina Royal
line of mica-based interference pigments. These pigments deliver the highest chromaticity available in shades ranging from
greenish blues through trending copper and oranges, Forsythe
said. The full line of Lumina Royal pigments include: Indigo,
Magenta, Aqua, Copper, Blue and Dragon Gold.
Paliocrom Sparkling Red, an intense sparkling colored aluminum pigment, launched in 2015 and broadened the red and
violet color space, Crosby said. Paliocrom Brilliant Gold and
Orange provide excellent hiding, high chroma and an attractive
light to dark flop in automotive applications.
Chromaflo: With increasingly more demanding VOC regula-
tions, Chromaflo has introduced colorant systems with ultra-
low levels of VOCs. Architectural coatings have some of the
lowest VOC restrictions. Chromaflo has been driving VOC lev-
els down in its colorants to get as close to zero as possible. With
recent limits on VOC’s in colorants in California, the industrial
market is also searching for products with lower VOCs.
“We recently introduced a new colorant system (UCD VXS)
based on an acrylic resin and exempt solvents,” McCormick
said. “The line utilizes various pigment chemistries that are typi-
cally used to color many industrial coatings systems.”
Hoover: Utilizing its new EnvironOxide technology, in
2015 Hoover Color introduced three new pigments with
improved transparency. These products chemically are Iron
Oxides, so have they have the same superior performance
properties that customers expect from Iron Oxides including
lightfastness, chemical resistance, low toxicity and UV absorption, said Hoover. The improved transparency gives formulators new option to produce gold, copper and bronze colors
when used to coat polished aluminum or in combination with
effect pigments. CW
elements of the precipitation process with sodium hydroxide in
order to achieve the highest possible pigment quality.
CW: What product advantages result from the new Ningbo
process?
PB: Basically, the new improved Ningbo process can produce everything from the more yellowish pigments to medium and dark red pigments. However, the special advantage
of this process lies in the very red, yellow-cast spectrum. This
is a color range that cannot be achieved, for instance, by the
Laux process. Products fabricated by our process demonstrate very good processing behavior and dispersibility, which
makes these red grades particularly attractive for use in paints
and coatings applications. In addition, the process can produce pigments that are redder than all other commercially
available iron oxide pigments.
CW: How do the New Red color pigments differ from those
currently available on the market?
PB: Thanks to the very flexible production process, we are
able to not only cover the classic color ranges of the Penniman Red and Copperas processes, but also to achieve new
color spaces not previously possible using any of the established methods. It is thus possible to manufacture pigments
having a stronger red color component than all commercially
available pigments. This is the first real innovation in the field
of inorganic pigments in decades.
CW: For what applications are red pigments used?
PB: Paints and coatings will be the primary area of application for our New Red pigments manufactured via the Ningbo
process. However, other applications are also conceivable,
including the coloration of plastics, paper and building materials. Our new pigments from Ningbo are also candidates
for use in a diverse range of technical applications, particularly
those such as catalysis, for example, that require high-purity
iron oxides with a tight particle size distribution.
CW: Have you already tested the pigments in practice?
PB: It was extremely important to us to fully test the new
products from the Ningbo process in our own Applications
Technology facilities, but also by getting feedback from various paints and coatings manufacturers in a pre-marketing
campaign. This was especially important to us because we
take the needs of our customers very seriously and integrate
them directly into the development of new sales products.
Overall, we received positive feedback from our customers
on our new products from Ningbo. However it will take until
Q1 2016 before we can offer standard production samples.
Customers continued to send us requests for the development of more new products, and we currently are reviewing
the feasibility in our Product Development and Applications
Technology departments.
