Dow Performance Silicones, a business unit of DowDupont Materials Science Division, has introduced Dow Corning 904H Coating Additive, a silicone additive for architectural façade coatings that supports enhanced aesthetics for building exteriors. This new silicone additive is designed to help coatings reduce the “snail trail” effect commonly seen when surfactants and other water-soluble ingredients in coatings formulations leach to the surface. Dow Corning 904H Coating Additive can also improve water resistance, repellency and beading in coatings by increasing their surface hydrophobicity.
 
“Architects, building owners and other specifiers around the world now use a wider range of paint colors. In more frequently used darker and brighter colors, typically the ‘snail trail’ effect is more visible when it occurs,” said Silicones Marketing Leader Coatings & Leather EMEAI Damian Froklage. “We recognized the need for a coating additive that could reduce surfactant leaching to resist this effect, especially for coatings applied in cold and humid weather conditions where ‘snail trails’ are encountered more frequently.”
 
This new silicone additive offers coatings formulators a simple way to minimize snail trails and improve water resistance. By adding Dow Corning 904H Coating Additive to an existing formulation, formulators can enhance the performance of their architectural façade coatings with minimal impact to the remainder of the formulation. This additive also contributes to formulation freedom when compared to other complex and time-consuming approaches to increasing coatings’ resistance to the “snail trail” effect, including reformulation.
 
“Dow Corning 904H Coating Additive addresses the growing importance of visually appealing, brightly colored façades by providing paint formulators with an add-in method to develop coatings that better resist ‘snail trails’ and have superior water resistance performance,” Froklage said.