“The region is one of the
most rapidly growing markets
for car production with Brazil
in the vanguard,” said Charlie
Shaver, Axalta chairman and CEO. “We
are committed to keeping pace with the
increasing demand for automotive paint
and serving the needs of our customers
who increasingly want the option to con-
vert to waterborne technology.”
Axalta is a leading player in the de-
velopment of waterborne technology
for both OEM and refinish customers.
The company’s waterborne production
process utilizes a waterborne technol-
ogy system to produce “Lean and Green
Automotive Coatings” that OEMs can
use to significantly reduce volatile organic
compounds (VOCs), energy consumption
and investment, according to the com-
pany. The “Lean and Green Automotive
Coating” process includes primer-less
coatings and 3-wet coatings that can
achieve full layer performance without
having to flash and bake between coats.
The increased productivity results in a
better bottom line for customers while
still producing an unparalleled finish on
vehicles. In addition, Axalta’s waterborne
products are intrinsically environmentally
responsible and meet global environmen-
tal requirements, such as the EU’s VOC
Regulation 2004/42/EC, to which Axalta
adheres in Brazil and that can help reduce
the overall environmental footprint of the
auto industry.
“Our decision to invest in Brazil reflects not only our commitment to our
customers, but also our confidence in the
Brazilian economy,” added Jorge Cossio,
vice president of Axalta Latin America.
“The tremendous growth of Brazil’s consumer market benefits everyone and we
are excited to be able to contribute to the
national success story.”
PPG Earns DOE Funding
to Develop IR Window
Coating
PPG Industries’ flat glass business
has received $312,000 from the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) to develop
a dynamically responsive infrared (IR)
window coating that will block heat in
the summer to reduce air-conditioning
costs and transmit solar heat in the win-
ter to reduce heating costs.
The funding is part of an award of
up to $750,000 being shared with project leader Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory (PNNL). PPG and PNNL
are designing a coating that can “switch”
from a solar IR-reflecting state to a solar
IR-transmitting state while maintaining
high levels of daylight transmittance in
either condition. PPG will provide an additional $78,000 in cost-sharing.
The development of such a coating
would represent a major advance compared to current thermochromic window
technology, which involves coatings that
darken and block visible light when exposed to high volumes of IR energy, and
existing electrochromic window technology, which relies on external power
sources such as electricity to balance tinting and light transmittance.
The new PPG/PNNL coating technology also has the potential to be inexpensive, which will help ensure that
dynamically responsive IR windows are
an economical option for use in residential and commercial retrofit applications.
Mehran Arbab, PPG director of glass
science and technology, said PPG appreciates the DOE’s continuing support of its
work to investigate cutting-edge energy-efficient glass and window technologies.
“PPG’s glass business is tightly focused
on energy-efficiency research and development for windows and more,” he said.
“Not only is it a market driver for our
company, we believe it is simply the right
thing to do.”
The two-year project is designed to develop dynamically responsive IR window
coatings on a laboratory scale. If development is successful, the product could be
scaled up and potentially commercialized
within several years. PPG also collaborated
recently with PNNL to develop and study
waste-heat recovery technologies to save
energy in the glass manufacturing process.
ShawCor Receives Contract
to Supply Pipeline Coatings
for Moho Nord Subsea
Project
ShawCor’s Socotherm pipe coating divi-
sion has received a contract with a value
in excess of $40 million from Tenaris to
provide pipeline coatings for the Moho
Nord Oil Pipeline project. The Moho
Nord project is located in water depths
of 650 to 1,150 meters approximately 75
kilometers off the Congo coast in West
Africa. The contract will be executed
primarily at the Socotherm pipe coating
facility in Pozzallo, Italy with additional
work to be completed at Socotherm’s
facilities in Adria, Italy and Escobar,
Argentina.
This contract involves coating approximately 165 km of 6” to 16” pipe
with 3-layer polypropylene anticorrosion
coating, 42 km of 8” to 10” pipe with
5-layer syntactic polypropylene coating
and 19 km of 16” pipe with 3-layer polypropylene anticorrosion coating together
with concrete weight coating. Coating is
expected to commence during the second
quarter of 2014.
GM UK to Provide Axalta’s
Refinish Brands
General Motors UK and Axalta Coating
Systems UK Limited have signed a three-year agreement which renews Axalta’s
three global refinish brands – Cromax,
Spies Hecker and Standox – as officially
approved suppliers for paint repairs on
Vauxhall in the UK.
The agreement sees Axalta’s three
global refinish brands supporting GM’s
UK Vauxhall dealers and their network of
approved bodyshops with paint warranty, technical backing and bodyshop management support. Cromax, Spies Hecker
and Standox will play an active role in
the training programs organized by GM
UK, providing ongoing product training,
training events and seminars on refinishing techniques and color matching. The
three global brands will also have access
to GM UK’s central billing process.
Although it is the first agreement to be
signed between Axalta Coating Systems
and an automotive original equipment
manufacturer (OEM) in the UK, the
agreement renews GM’s association with
the three brands, which the car manufacturer previously had under the DuPont
umbrella. It coincides with GM’s recent
announcement of a UK year-on-year sales
increase of 11 percent.
