High Performance & Special Effect Pigments

Faux granite vases. A car that looks green then blue then red. A house paint that won't fade just a few years down the road. If consumers demand it, paint companies need to deliver.

Thanks to pigment suppliers, a wide range of high-performance and special effect pigments are now available that enable coatings companies to formulate top-of-the-line, specialty coatings with greater ease and confidence.

Defining High Performance
As coatings technology grows more sophisticated and some raw materials are pushed to commodity levels, how does one define a high performance pigment (HPP) in today's marketplace?

"There is no consensus today as to what a high-performance pigment is," said Andrew Zamoyski, technical and quality manager, pigments, Clariant. "Twenty years ago, a pigment that performed as well as a quinacridone or phthalocyanine was considered a high performance pigment. Today, most phthalocyanines are considered commodities and quinacridones are rapidly following phthalocyanines into the commodities category. So, excellent properties alone no longer define high performance pig