Kerry Pianoforte, Editor08.28.24
This month, Coatings World interviewed a number of key suppliers of performance enhancing additives. They include: Zaheed Islam, global segment manager for coatings, Cabot Corp.; Keith Condon, national sales director, and Tyler John, technical sales manager, Gehring Montgomery; Rajesh Wadhwani, global business manager - Coatings, Honeywell; Rich Czarnecki, VP, Micro Powders, Inc.; John Kwasnecki, director of sales, Munzing; Kevin Huang, product manager, Shamrock Technologies; and Robert Ruckle, global marketing and sales director, Siltech.
CW: What types of performance enhancing additives does your company offer?
Cabot: Cabot Corp. is a leading provider of reinforcing carbons, specialty carbons, battery materials, engineered elastomer composites, inkjet colorants, masterbatches and conductive compounds, fumed metal oxides and aerogel.
Our CAB-O-SIL fumed silica products act as rheology modifiers. They are used to adjust the viscosity of coatings. Additionally, CAB-O-SIL fumed silica is used as an anti-settling agent – it retards settling of pigments and other particles in the container, promoting a uniform consistency. This is widely used in automotive and industrial paints. The anti-sagging properties of CAB-O-SIL fumed silica help prevent the coating from sagging or running when applied to vertical surfaces, which is particularly important in high-build coatings and spray applications.
CAB-O-SIL fumed silica is also a highly efficient matting additive for wood and leather coatings, providing good matting performance, smooth surface appearance and superior clarity at lower loadings compared to other technologies in this application space.
Another performance additive I would like to highlight is our surface treated specialty carbons, which are widely used in automotive, industrial and decorative coatings. Our high color specialty carbon black enables deep masstone jetness, reliable tinting performance and blue undertone in automotive basecoat applications.
We also offer additives that enable conductive properties. Our VULCAN conductive carbon blacks are an excellent choice for electrostatic coatings with exceptional conductivity and processability. Our ATHLOS carbon nanostructures enable high levels of conductivity at very low loadings, minimizing the impact on color.
Gehring Montgomery: Keim-additec Surface is a key additive supplier to the coatings, paints, and graphic arts market. Most recently we have merged with Gehring Montgomery, a TER Chemicals division. “This merger will offer more resources to enhance our premium products further into the U.S. market.”
Our Ceronas GmbH & Co. KG lines – a manufacturer and developer of micronized wax additives, micronized waxes under the brand name mju:wax, oxidized VISCOCER waxes and polymers as well as innovative additives like ionomers, modified polyester waxes and functionalized ADDIMER wax blends.
Ceronas additives are used in a broad field of industrial applications like coatings, powder coatings, printing inks, lacquers, plastics, masterbatches, release agents, lubricants, wax emulsions, wax dispersions and more. www.ceronas.de.
Our CHT lines - innovative wax or silicone emulsions for surface properties, hybrid technologies wax & silicone blend emulsions – are FDA approved. Also, defoamers, dispersants to develop maximum color development, wetting agents for flow and leveling, super hydrophobicity additives that offer extremely high contact angles and all products provide an exceptional portfolio to help our coatings clients achieve superior performance and success in their respective applications.
Our MOWITAL, Kuraray line of polyvinyl butyral resins are characterized by presence of butyral-, hydroxyl-, and acetyl-groups. This additive offers excellent adhesive and film-forming properties, strong binding power and outstanding optical transparency, polyvinyl butyrals are utmost versatile. Key applications are paints, lacquers, and varnishes (e.g. primers for metals and anti-corrosion paints), printing inks, temporary binders, and adhesives.
Honeywell: Honeywell offers a range of performance enhancing additives, including NduroMatt multi-functional additives, micronized solutions for effective matting, enhancing durability and surface properties; Cohesa high-performance emulsions to boost adhesion for various substrates; AClyn high-performance additives for inks, adhesives, sealants, and coatings; A-C Polyethylene Additives, polyethylene additives improving slip, scratch resistance, and pigment dispersion.
MPI: Micro Powders’ additives provide excellent surface protection, including lubricity, scratch and abrasion resistance, and antiblocking. Other products provide superior gloss reduction, texturing, water repellency, and surface haptics. Our additives are suitable for all types of coatings, including solvent-based, waterbased, energy curable, and 100% solids systems. The right choice additive can make the difference between a good coating and a great one.
Munzing: Our specialty liquid and powder additives and waxes are targeted at coatings, adhesives, inks, paper manufacturing, food processing, industrial fluids, wood processing and dry mix construction products. They help control and improve pigment dispersion, foaming, wetting, leveling, rheology, slip, surface texture, matting and numerous other specific performance demands.
Shamrock Technologies: We offer a broad line of micronized powders, dispersions, emulsions and compounds developed for an array of different paint and coatings: wood, coil, can, industrial, powder and architectural coatings all benefit from our additives.
Siltech: Most additives are performance enhancing in that they improve the properties of the coating either during application or after cure. Siltech coatings additives fit broadly into several performance enhancing approaches. The first is additives that lower the surface tension of the coating thereby improving surface wetting, flow and leveling, gloss and DOI.
The second type of Siltech additive blooms to the surface and provides advantages from the lowered surface energy. Slip, anti-blocking, stain resistance, mar resistance, and feel properties derive mainly from this effect.
Another major property that can provide enhanced features to the coating is limited compatibility. A barely miscible additive is important for foam and entrained air control which eliminates defects and processing issues. This feature also can maximize the blooming and properties associated with that as described above.
Ironically, although I have separated this into intellectual features, any given organosilicone additive gives at least some of each of these features. The art is designing and choosing the additive to give the properties you want enhanced while controlling the impact on those features you do not want enhanced. Silicone polymer chemists do this by using chain length, molecular architecture, degree and type of modification as the most dominant design variables.
Finally, Siltech offers a full portfolio of reactive silicones which utilize the same functional organic moieties that the resins use to crosslink to insinuate themselves into the resin network. Broadly, this provides a softer, more flexible yet stronger network with many of the properties associated with blooming built in. This latter point provides constant properties whereas the blooming approach often continues to bloom after cure.
CW: Given the added costs, what are the benefits to the customer?
Cabot: Additives are highly efficient substances, which are added to coating formulations in small quantities to enhance specific coating properties.
Our specialty additives are designed to provide exceptional value in improving the color, processing, applicability, strength and safety of a wide range of coating formulations. These include liquid coatings that are water-based or solvent-based as well as powder coatings, which are 100% solid.
GM: PTFE containing waxes are typically more costly, so we are giving our customers an equal or better performance offering that is more cost effective and better for the environment. Our mju:wax products have been able to offer equal or better rub, scratch, and surface modification properties. Some additives offer value and performance; however due to regulatory changes, PTFE is being replaced with new PTFE- free additives.
Additives play a crucial role in finalizing or perfecting a coating. They are typically a low-level ingredient that enhances various properties, including flow or leveling. The proper additives can ensure that a coating flows well during its application, preventing unsightly bubbles or imperfections. Additives can make a coating resistant to scratches, unsightly marks or even corrosion. Certain additives can manipulate or adjust the glossiness of a coating. Gehring Montgomery prides themselves in innovative solutions, friendly customer service, and their superior technical support.
Honeywell: The benefits to the customer include: Enhanced Durability: Improved resistance to abrasion, mar, and stains, extending product lifespan; Improved Performance: Better adhesion and slip properties, enhancing overall product functionality; Cost Efficiency: Reduced maintenance and longer-lasting performance provide cost savings over time; Formulation Flexibility: Ability to tailor formulations to specific application needs, providing customized solutions.
MPI: On the contrary, since most of our additives are designed to migrate to the surface during drying and curing, plus the fact that most customers use dosage levels of 1%, the benefits of Micro Powders’ additives far outweigh the slight increase in formula cost. Additionally, formulators can use lower performance resins and binders, which account for far more of the formulation cost, and, with the right additive selection, end up with a higher performance coating at a lower overall raw material cost.
Munzing: The difficulty that faces a customer/formulator is to balance product performance and complexity of manufacturing with the overall cost of ownership. MUNZING specialty additives are designed with those goals in mind. Our products are formulated to contain high actives content; many provide multi-functional benefits so that one additive can replace two. All are designed to meet current and future regulations and they are produced locally for almost every market we are in. All those factors simplify and enhance the ability of our customers to formulate market leading products with MUNZING additives.
Shamrock Technologies: At a modest loading of 0.5%-3%, properties such as matting, mar resistance, slip, haptic properties, hydrophobicity, and water beading can be achieved with our custom formulas, tailored to specific needs that otherwise cannot be achieved with the bulk of the resin and solvent formula.
Siltech: Also, it is worth pointing out that the use levels are usually well below 1% for these additives so the financial impact to the coating is low.
CW: What types of performance enhancing additives does your company offer?
Cabot: Cabot Corp. is a leading provider of reinforcing carbons, specialty carbons, battery materials, engineered elastomer composites, inkjet colorants, masterbatches and conductive compounds, fumed metal oxides and aerogel.
Our CAB-O-SIL fumed silica products act as rheology modifiers. They are used to adjust the viscosity of coatings. Additionally, CAB-O-SIL fumed silica is used as an anti-settling agent – it retards settling of pigments and other particles in the container, promoting a uniform consistency. This is widely used in automotive and industrial paints. The anti-sagging properties of CAB-O-SIL fumed silica help prevent the coating from sagging or running when applied to vertical surfaces, which is particularly important in high-build coatings and spray applications.
CAB-O-SIL fumed silica is also a highly efficient matting additive for wood and leather coatings, providing good matting performance, smooth surface appearance and superior clarity at lower loadings compared to other technologies in this application space.
Another performance additive I would like to highlight is our surface treated specialty carbons, which are widely used in automotive, industrial and decorative coatings. Our high color specialty carbon black enables deep masstone jetness, reliable tinting performance and blue undertone in automotive basecoat applications.
We also offer additives that enable conductive properties. Our VULCAN conductive carbon blacks are an excellent choice for electrostatic coatings with exceptional conductivity and processability. Our ATHLOS carbon nanostructures enable high levels of conductivity at very low loadings, minimizing the impact on color.
Gehring Montgomery: Keim-additec Surface is a key additive supplier to the coatings, paints, and graphic arts market. Most recently we have merged with Gehring Montgomery, a TER Chemicals division. “This merger will offer more resources to enhance our premium products further into the U.S. market.”
Our Ceronas GmbH & Co. KG lines – a manufacturer and developer of micronized wax additives, micronized waxes under the brand name mju:wax, oxidized VISCOCER waxes and polymers as well as innovative additives like ionomers, modified polyester waxes and functionalized ADDIMER wax blends.
Ceronas additives are used in a broad field of industrial applications like coatings, powder coatings, printing inks, lacquers, plastics, masterbatches, release agents, lubricants, wax emulsions, wax dispersions and more. www.ceronas.de.
Our CHT lines - innovative wax or silicone emulsions for surface properties, hybrid technologies wax & silicone blend emulsions – are FDA approved. Also, defoamers, dispersants to develop maximum color development, wetting agents for flow and leveling, super hydrophobicity additives that offer extremely high contact angles and all products provide an exceptional portfolio to help our coatings clients achieve superior performance and success in their respective applications.
Our MOWITAL, Kuraray line of polyvinyl butyral resins are characterized by presence of butyral-, hydroxyl-, and acetyl-groups. This additive offers excellent adhesive and film-forming properties, strong binding power and outstanding optical transparency, polyvinyl butyrals are utmost versatile. Key applications are paints, lacquers, and varnishes (e.g. primers for metals and anti-corrosion paints), printing inks, temporary binders, and adhesives.
Honeywell: Honeywell offers a range of performance enhancing additives, including NduroMatt multi-functional additives, micronized solutions for effective matting, enhancing durability and surface properties; Cohesa high-performance emulsions to boost adhesion for various substrates; AClyn high-performance additives for inks, adhesives, sealants, and coatings; A-C Polyethylene Additives, polyethylene additives improving slip, scratch resistance, and pigment dispersion.
MPI: Micro Powders’ additives provide excellent surface protection, including lubricity, scratch and abrasion resistance, and antiblocking. Other products provide superior gloss reduction, texturing, water repellency, and surface haptics. Our additives are suitable for all types of coatings, including solvent-based, waterbased, energy curable, and 100% solids systems. The right choice additive can make the difference between a good coating and a great one.
Munzing: Our specialty liquid and powder additives and waxes are targeted at coatings, adhesives, inks, paper manufacturing, food processing, industrial fluids, wood processing and dry mix construction products. They help control and improve pigment dispersion, foaming, wetting, leveling, rheology, slip, surface texture, matting and numerous other specific performance demands.
Shamrock Technologies: We offer a broad line of micronized powders, dispersions, emulsions and compounds developed for an array of different paint and coatings: wood, coil, can, industrial, powder and architectural coatings all benefit from our additives.
Siltech: Most additives are performance enhancing in that they improve the properties of the coating either during application or after cure. Siltech coatings additives fit broadly into several performance enhancing approaches. The first is additives that lower the surface tension of the coating thereby improving surface wetting, flow and leveling, gloss and DOI.
The second type of Siltech additive blooms to the surface and provides advantages from the lowered surface energy. Slip, anti-blocking, stain resistance, mar resistance, and feel properties derive mainly from this effect.
Another major property that can provide enhanced features to the coating is limited compatibility. A barely miscible additive is important for foam and entrained air control which eliminates defects and processing issues. This feature also can maximize the blooming and properties associated with that as described above.
Ironically, although I have separated this into intellectual features, any given organosilicone additive gives at least some of each of these features. The art is designing and choosing the additive to give the properties you want enhanced while controlling the impact on those features you do not want enhanced. Silicone polymer chemists do this by using chain length, molecular architecture, degree and type of modification as the most dominant design variables.
Finally, Siltech offers a full portfolio of reactive silicones which utilize the same functional organic moieties that the resins use to crosslink to insinuate themselves into the resin network. Broadly, this provides a softer, more flexible yet stronger network with many of the properties associated with blooming built in. This latter point provides constant properties whereas the blooming approach often continues to bloom after cure.
CW: Given the added costs, what are the benefits to the customer?
Cabot: Additives are highly efficient substances, which are added to coating formulations in small quantities to enhance specific coating properties.
Our specialty additives are designed to provide exceptional value in improving the color, processing, applicability, strength and safety of a wide range of coating formulations. These include liquid coatings that are water-based or solvent-based as well as powder coatings, which are 100% solid.
GM: PTFE containing waxes are typically more costly, so we are giving our customers an equal or better performance offering that is more cost effective and better for the environment. Our mju:wax products have been able to offer equal or better rub, scratch, and surface modification properties. Some additives offer value and performance; however due to regulatory changes, PTFE is being replaced with new PTFE- free additives.
Additives play a crucial role in finalizing or perfecting a coating. They are typically a low-level ingredient that enhances various properties, including flow or leveling. The proper additives can ensure that a coating flows well during its application, preventing unsightly bubbles or imperfections. Additives can make a coating resistant to scratches, unsightly marks or even corrosion. Certain additives can manipulate or adjust the glossiness of a coating. Gehring Montgomery prides themselves in innovative solutions, friendly customer service, and their superior technical support.
Honeywell: The benefits to the customer include: Enhanced Durability: Improved resistance to abrasion, mar, and stains, extending product lifespan; Improved Performance: Better adhesion and slip properties, enhancing overall product functionality; Cost Efficiency: Reduced maintenance and longer-lasting performance provide cost savings over time; Formulation Flexibility: Ability to tailor formulations to specific application needs, providing customized solutions.
MPI: On the contrary, since most of our additives are designed to migrate to the surface during drying and curing, plus the fact that most customers use dosage levels of 1%, the benefits of Micro Powders’ additives far outweigh the slight increase in formula cost. Additionally, formulators can use lower performance resins and binders, which account for far more of the formulation cost, and, with the right additive selection, end up with a higher performance coating at a lower overall raw material cost.
Munzing: The difficulty that faces a customer/formulator is to balance product performance and complexity of manufacturing with the overall cost of ownership. MUNZING specialty additives are designed with those goals in mind. Our products are formulated to contain high actives content; many provide multi-functional benefits so that one additive can replace two. All are designed to meet current and future regulations and they are produced locally for almost every market we are in. All those factors simplify and enhance the ability of our customers to formulate market leading products with MUNZING additives.
Shamrock Technologies: At a modest loading of 0.5%-3%, properties such as matting, mar resistance, slip, haptic properties, hydrophobicity, and water beading can be achieved with our custom formulas, tailored to specific needs that otherwise cannot be achieved with the bulk of the resin and solvent formula.
Siltech: Also, it is worth pointing out that the use levels are usually well below 1% for these additives so the financial impact to the coating is low.
