The market for high-performance pigments (HPP) faced a challenging year.

In addition to slower demand in the automotive market and raw material issues, the HPP market was impacted in early 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The market for high-performance pigments was stressed by a lot of uncertainties arising from the discussions about import duties, a still possible Brexit, as well as significant changes in the automotive industry,” said Christine Gehres, VP Business Unit sales & marketing at Heucotech Ltd. “Availability of raw materials improved compared to 2018, but there were still some challenges mostly due to environmental issues in China.

Most of the raw material cost increases we had seen in 2018 did not continue in 2019.

“2019 will be remembered as a very volatile and challenging year,” Gerhes continued. “The market was still performing well in Q1, we saw flat growth in Q2 and a slowdown in Q3 and in Q4 in Europe and Asia. The Coatings and Plastics markets were influenced by a decline of demand in the automotive industry. There was growth in the high performance and specialty segments in the U.S., but traditional markets were negatively impacted.

“Heubach is backward integrated to produce crude for automotive-grade pigments to ensure availability and consistent quality. The investment into a second manufacturing location for anti-corrosive pigments improves and ensures availability today and in the future,” Gerhes concluded.

“2019 and the first half of 2020 have been dynamic times for high-performance pigments,” said Scott Heitzman, Business Development manager – Plastics, Sun Chemical Performance Pigments. “There was a significant impact from raw materials, tariffs and quarantine shutdowns that have affected all markets. Automotive is particularly hard hit by recent events that greatly influence high-performance pigments. Sun Chemical worked diligently on both sides with our raw material suppliers and global customers to work through those challenges. Our extensive supply chain and global sourcing strategy helped to mitigate the impact of tariffs and shortages, and we are committed to working through other ongoing and future challenges to provide uninterrupted delivery to our customers.” 

“The high-performance market did well in 2019,” said Pravin Chaudhary, CEO, Pigment Division, Pidilite Industries Limited. “The coatings and ink segments contributed significantly. A significant trend was customers are far more willing to source HP pigments from India, from companies offering standard quality and consistency. The pace is picking up in view of several geopolitical events happening since last year. We believe this trend will continue in years to come.”

“High-performance pigments grew in all chemistries around the globe,” added Mark Ryan, marketing manager, The Shepherd Color Company. “Functionality for applications like IR sorting of recyclables found cutting edge uses for CICPs. The improved RTZ Orange products and all-new NTP Yellow continued to see large year-on-year gains. Interestingly, the unique NTP Yellow sales were driven by the easily-dispersed Dynamix product known as Yellow 30C152. We see this ‘stacking’ of technology- a chromatic, durable, and opaque patented pigment chemistry with Shepherd’s unique Dynamix easily-dispersed modification as the future of HPPs.”

DCL has been working for the last year building new high-performance pigment capacity in Canada, which has recently been commissioned.

“We believe this may be the first investment in a new capacity of its kind in North America for decades,” said Frank Lavieri, executive VP sales and marketing, DCL Corp. “We intend to manufacture Hansa and Benzimidazolone yellows primarily for the Coatings industry and Calcium Salt Azo yellows primarily for the Plastics industry.

“Pigments made in Canada are free of all import duties into the U.S. and Mexico markets. We feel that this new capacity will meet a need for high-quality pigments available with short lead times,” he continued.
“In addition to the new capacity, we have also completely redesigned our website for easier access to technical and product information under our new company name DCL. These are exciting times at DCL,” Lavieri concluded.
By far the most significant issue facing all industries right now is the COVID-19 crisis, which has wreaked havoc across the world with mass shutdowns amid fears for workers’ safety.

Specifically, for HPP manufacturers, the concern was initially raw material shortages in China, but as the crisis grew in scope production shutdowns and slowed demand were also of concern.

Heubach has been working on increasing inventories and advancing its orders with its production facilities and raw material suppliers globally since the first news of the coronavirus hit.

“The efforts to find even more alternate sources of raw materials also with respect to locations of the supplier has become a new dimension,” said Gehres. “While Heubach is in a good supply situation, unforeseen disruptions that are out of our control cannot be fully excluded. We do not see an end nor easy solutions to these challenging circumstances, but we will keep our customers informed on specific items and assist with keeping the effects to a minimum on a case by case basis.

“Our global organization is closely following actions of local governments that could result in restrictions on local communities, including temporary business shutdowns,” she added. Our supply chain partners are seeing an impact on the supply chain (e.g. shortages of truckers, availability of steamship sailings) and the overall cost of transportation.”

“The pandemic has created a high level of uncertainty and has impacted people in all regions of the world,” said Heitzman. “With each country currently at a different stage of recovery, there were many temporary shutdowns in major pigment-producing markets such as China and India. Sun Chemical’s global footprint, with over 20 manufacturing sites, allows us to respond to these shifts and support our customers with a reliable supply.

“In addition, Sun Chemical’s portfolio supports essential businesses and has focused its efforts to support these areas during COVID-19. The largest operational challenges have been to keep pace with evolving regional regulations and developing effective screening and disinfection protocols,” Heitzman added. “Sun Chemical’s excellent Environmental Health and Safety department has worked tirelessly to assist the labs and plants, achieve compliance and more importantly, maximize protection.”

“COVID-19 did cause short term disturbances in the business momentum, however, operations are returning to normalcy fast,” said Chaudhary. “Specifically on raw materials, our company did stock extra material to overcome potential disturbance at suppliers and logistics end. we are watching the situation carefully and taking several measures to avoid raw material outages.”

Through long-term relationships, duplication of key raw materials, and constant communication with suppliers, Shepherd Color was able to maintain production, and more importantly, be ready to ramp up as demand returns.

“Some sectors are up, some are down and order patterns fluctuate,” said Ryan. “Shepherd works to make sure that we supply our customers the pigment they need around the globe. International shipments have been affected by the availability and circulation of containers. We recognize these constraints so we partner with established exporters, forwarders and shippers to minimize logistics problems in our supply chain.”

New Products:

• DCL: 7422 Quinacridone Magenta 122 is a highly transparent quinacridone magenta designed for automotive and high quality industrial applications especially in combination with effect pigments. 7751 Benzimidazolone Yellow 151 has improved weatherability and tint strength compared to other grades available on the market.  This product is targeted for high quality industrial coatings applications.

• Heubach: Heubach expanded its anticorrosive portfolio with a new range of two Flash Rust Inhibitors – HEUCOFLASHTM LQ1 and LQ2. The liquid, VOC free, high performance types are recommended for all kind of waterborne protective coatings. HEUCOFLASHTM products successfully prevent flash rusting and show unique synergies with HEUCOPHOS pigments leading to a long term protective coating. Heubach launched three new products of its PBr24 high strength line. This has enabled  customers to achieve the same color shade using up to 20% less pigment. Heubach have expanded the HEUCO FIT LR line (inorganic/organic dry pigment preparations) for high performance coatings. The line was originally designed for the plastics industry e.g. due to the excellent heat stability of the pigments.

• Pidilite Industries: In 2019, the company launched Benzimidazolone PO 64. Shortly the company will be coming out with Mono Azo PY 183 and 191. Apart from these new CIs, the company has been developing customized grades of its existing CIs for its customers who are looking for alternates to recognized international brands to support them in these uncertain times. Many new projects are underway for new CIs and the company is also closely working with R&D.

• Shepherd Color: • Shepherd Color has just launched a new product tailored to improve plastics sustainability by increasing the recyclability of dark colored plastics.  Most black plastic can’t be identified by IR sorting equipment found in recycling centers.  Black 10P925 is an IR black that allows black plastics to be identified and sorted.  It can be used in plastics or the inks used to coat plastics.

• Sun Chemical: Sunbrite Super Fine Red 254:  226-9254 is a new addition to its DPP product range.  Applying Sun Chemical’s extensive knowledge and experience in high transparency pigments to make a transparent grade of this versatile chemistry, Super Fine Red 254 joins Sun Chemical’s transparent grades of Quindo Red 122, 202 and Perrindo Red 179. Transparent Red 254 can be used with Effect and Metallic pigments to create unique visual effects for indoor applications.