Coatings World - January 2017

by Vladislav Vorotnikov Russia Correspondent

The single wall carbon nanotubes industry has a lot of of poten- tial for cooperation with coating manufacturers. One key ares is in the antistatic and conductive coatings segments, according to Luxemburg-based company OCSiAl, which accounts for 90 percent of global capacities for single wall nanotubes. The key point of the company’s marketing strategy is the ability to roll out in the market high quality single wall carbon nanotubes, branded TUBALL, 75 times cheaper compared to the nearest analogues in industrial volume. This has allowed to bring nanoaugmented materials into the mainstream in various industries for the first time.

So far the coatings industry accounts for only a small part of the company clients’ portfolio, as OCSiAl is operating in a wide range of markets, supplying nanotubes for the production of polymers, composites, rubber goods and cathode materials for li-ion batteries, also conducting R&D initiatives exploring potential of product use in several other directions.

In November 2016 the company held the first Nanoaugmented Materials Industry Summit in Novosibirsk, Siberia where it main production assets are located. The company reported there was marked interest for nanotubes use in the coating industry. Among the main ventures, it has entered into a contract with BÜFA for production of TUBALL-based gelcoats.

Lothar Kempf, BÜFA managing di-
rector, said: “BÜFA has developed resin
formulations for gelcoats and for GRP-
composites based on OCSiAl nanotubes.
A concentration of just 0.05 percent of
TUBALL has allowed us not only to
adjust the surface resistivity of our gel-
coat to 104 Ω/sq, but also to preserve
the mechanical properties and maintain
the existing formulation and processing.
Now we are working on enhancing the
mechanical properties of composites ma-
terials with TUBALL.”

According to OCSiAl, single wall carbon nanotubes are one of the most effective conductive additives. They are able to significantly increase electrical and thermal conductivity, and to improve the mechanical properties and other important characteristics of materials. The key advantage is that these desired properties can be achieved with ultralow loadings of the additive – hundreds or thousands of times lower than other widely used conductive additives, and starting from concentrations of just 0.01 percent, the company said.

More effect, less loading

Nikolay Ivanov, product developer of
OCSiAl explained, at the coatings seg-
ment the company is now primarily fo-
cused on nanotubes use for the changing
of electrical conductivity properties of
coatings materials.

“The tubes are long and very thin, so they can be distributed well throughout material. In this case, they form a network and already at thousandths of a percent in terms of structure it can be compared with armature in concrete, while it is clear that due to the fact that the network is obtained throughout the material, the properties of this material could be significantly changed,” Ivanov said.

As a result, OCSiAl found the possibility to cooperate with customers, who are interested in the manufacturing of conductive coatings. According to Ivanov, this segment opened several opportunities for the company where innovative products might be used.