“Demand for agricultural
equipment will remain strong
as the demand for food stuffs
increases and farmers in
developing countries can earn a
return on investing in larger farms
and the equipment needed to
work them productively.”
Photo courtesy of Hempel.
In Europe, RoHS compliance is driving innovation in coatings systems. In turn, these regulations are working their way
to China as it serves the rest of the world through exports. For
companies like Valspar that invest in advanced technology, these
trends represent a way to capture more market share and stay
ahead of regulatory changes.
Low-VOC and waterborne systems continue to drive innovation. The need to reduce pollution and VOCs in more cities
and provinces has accelerated the growth of waterborne platforms. While limits on raw materials and emissions increase the
challenge of formulating high performance coatings, they also
provide stronger opportunities for companies like Valspar to innovate to solve technical challenges.
“Not only the legislation but also quite a few of our customers are very sensitive with regards to the health, safety
and environment (HSE) impact of the coatings solutions that
they use,” said Likouressis. “Waterborne coatings can offer
well performing solutions, they need however to reach scale
to become competitive. Solventborne versus waterborne is
not however the only dimension in the developments that are
taking place in connection to HSE; as an example, the use of
chemicals such as isocyanates or lead can also be addressed
with equally competitive and performing solutions.”
New Products
Valspar targets new product development at increasing performance against regulatory, corrosion and / or applied cost.
For instance, Valspar’s Aquaguard is the first and only
technology in many categories— the shipping container mar-
ket’s first and only low-VOC water-based, zinc-free, two-coat
coating system. In a market where containers circle the globe
many times over an average in-service life of 14 years, the first
containers coated with Aquaguard have more than five years
of proven corrosion prevention, and Aquaguard is qualified
on more coatings lines than any other water-based coating
in the container market, the company reported. Aquaguard
provides an alternative to high-VOC, three coat, solvent-
based, zinc rich coatings, and has shown to be equal or better
for corrosion prevention.
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