Kerry Pianoforte, Editor01.11.21
Coatings World interviewed several additives manufacturers on the state of the additives market in 2020. The expert panel is comprised of Yohann Trang, Global Business manager Coatings, Adhesives & Sealants, Coatex Group, Arkema; Mark Piggott, business manager, Solventborne & Additives (NAM), Arkema Coating Resins; David Grabacki, president, keim additec surface USA, LLC; Joon Choo, VP sales at Shamrock Technologies; Robert Ruckle, global marketing and sales director, Siltech Corp.; and Brad McPhee, business manager, performance additives, Troy Corp.
CW: How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the additives market in 2020?
Trang: There is a continuous and growing demand for Rheology and dispersing additives with more and more demanding and challenging requirements. Nevertheless, lower demand was observed in various regions at different times and the major challenge was on lead time for deliveries as transportation, ships and trucks availability is reduced. Coatex has the ability to produce and supply from all regions over the world, allowing good flexibility in the supply chain to continue delivering our customers and limit the impact while assuring our employees to work in safe conditions
Grabacki: Initially, we saw the automotive market hit particularly hard, while markets like mulch colorants, architectural coatings and other markets were mostly unaffected. Automotive has since started to make a bit of a comeback.
Choo: COVID-19 posed logistical challenges with respect to the additives market with manufacturing companies, for suppliers and customers alike, having to work around Stay-at-Home orders as the pandemic peaked and ebbed. Flexibility and adaptability were key to ensuring a reliable supply of products, as well as the ability to manage inventories and associated costs proactively.
Ruckle: For us, our customers are all still buying, but orders are smaller and further apart causing an across-the-board softening of demand.
McPhee: Adaptability is one of Troy’s strengths, and as such, the company has been well-suited to handle variables in the marketplace and business environment. Troy’s contingency plans have been well-planned and implemented to allow us to adjust to these unprecedented times. As such, the company has remained fully operational to serve its customers with products and services worldwide without significant interruption. While there are many COVID-related uncertainties in the near term, the coatings industry currently remains strong. An unexpected effect on additive demand was seen with a steady increase in DIY product sales in 2020, which in turn fueled customer demand for Troy products and services. We are seeing high demand for our products and services worldwide, and we expect this to continue, while at the same time remaining vigilant and well-prepared for future COVID-related effects, as well as for the recovery period in 2021 and beyond.
CW: What types of additives does your company manufacture?
Piggott: Arkema Coating Resins produces functional coating additives for decorative and industrial coatings, sealants, inks and defoamers for paint.
CRAYVALLAC coating additives include rheology modifiers, surface modifiers, and flow and leveling agents.
CRAYVALLAC additives offer value-added properties to control rheology, to provide anti-settling properties, controlled thixotropy and antisag properties. The surface modifiers permit to control matting, anti-abrasion, slip and rub, sanding and texturing. The flow and leveling agents offer superior recoatability.
CRAYVALLAC coating additives are available around the globe.
Trang: Coatex is designing and producing rheology modifiers and dispersing agents, acrylic thickeners (ASE and HASE), polyurethane thickeners (HEUR) and copolymer or polyacrylic dispersants.
Grabacki: High-performance PE/PP and functionalized synthetic and compound wax produced in flakes, beads, and micronized powder forms. Water dispersions of waxes of the various types are available in nano- and micro-particle sizes. Silicon and Siloxane-based additives are available for general usage in paint-coating-ink applications.
Choo: Shamrock supplies additives that impact surface properties of inks and coatings, such as slip, feel, look, anti-blocking, water repellency and resistance to abrasion. These additives are based on both natural and polymeric molecules ranging from paraffinic waxes to fluorinated materials. Shamrock is also the leading recycler of post-industrial fluoropolymer materials, enabling circular use of otherwise highly persistent waste materials.
Ruckle: Silicone-based additives
McPhee: Troy manufactures a full range of liquid and powder performance additives as well as driers for coatings. This portfolio puts the company in a unique position, being the only full-range manufacturer of both biocides and additives. Value-added performance additives are essential to the formulation, production, and application of high-quality coatings, whether for architectural or industrial use, and aqueous or non-aqueous systems. Wetting and flow & leveling additives, such as Troy’s Troysol products, control a wide range of product properties, enhance surface appearance and integrity, and eliminate film defects. These additives allow the formulation of films with excellent resistance to mar and abrasion, with increased surface slip. Wetting and flow & leveling additives also allow for coating over many substrate types, including contaminated substrates. Dispersants, such as the Troysperse line, ensure optimum color strength and uniformity.
Defoamers, such as Troykyd additives, eliminate entrapped air so that bubbles and pinholes don’t degrade the applied coating film. Thixotropic agents and rheology modifiers, like Troy’s Troythix products, improve the storage stability, application, and appearance of manufactured products and production processes, and enable precise control of the rheological properties of the materials to which they are added. Troythix rheology products enable control of viscosity, settling resistance, and sag resistance. Additionally, Troy offers Powdermate powder coating additives, performance a variety of functions, such as flow & leveling, degassing, and texturing. Troy’s metal carboxylates include a broad range of Troymax and Troycat driers as well as anti-skinning agents.
CW: What are the latest technologies being developed for use in paint and coatings?
Piggott: Legislation continues to push towards greener technologies with lower VOC contents. This trend comes along with specific challenges related to rheology, particularly for industrial coatings. Those paints present logically higher viscosity but also different drying profiles and are more difficult to spray. To control rheology is key to ensure coatings stability, ease of application and to ensure thickness control. It is why our additive department developed a rheology modifier suitable for higher solid content (very high solid and solvent-free. Crayvallac rheology modifiers can help to face up these challenges.
However, they need an activation step to provide the rheological network that will bring the rheological benefits. This activation is performed by using heat and shear and is dependent on solvent type and content. Therefore we focused our efforts to develop additives that will be easier to activate in fewer solvents for those specific new coating systems.
Grabacki: Multi composition wax products in micronized and water dispersion forms to minimize the number of additives for achieving paints and coatings’ complex performance. Hybrid Silicon oil and Polymer products to fulfill the unique characteristics of paints and coatings towards defoaming-leveling-wetting and pigment dispersion properties.
Choo: In response to tightening regulatory oversight on PFOA and related substances in Europe, as pertains to material and parts, Shamrock developed new testing and manufacturing technologies to ensure compliance, to help customers future-proof their formulations as the regulations evolve and get derogated. We have launched a new series of PTFE-containing products that are well in compliance with the <25ppb threshold, and continue investing in expanded capacities in our plants globally to serve customers.
Ruckle: A lot of our customer projects are focused on germicidal coatings for various substrates.
McPhee: Troy is a company built on innovation, and is committed to the research & development of the latest technologies to enable customers to lead in the marketplace.
Troy is continually expanding its Z-line of performance additives, which are developed specifically for ‘green’ systems. These Z-line additives are free of VOC, HAPs, and APEO, and offer performance at low use levels, making them ideal for modern aqueous formulations. An example is advanced Troysol ZLAC, a ‘green’, multifunctional, silicone-free additive that improves substrate wetting, flow & leveling, adhesion, gloss, and color uniformity in aqueous coatings and adhesives. The highly effective additive offers enhanced control of coating surface properties and the elimination of surface defects, such as crawling and cratering. Troysol ZLAC can help formulators achieve enhanced performance in many different applications, and offers performance at low use levels for minimized cost-in-use.
The Troysperse ZWD series of high-performance dispersants is engineered for formulators requiring excellent color development capabilities, high pigment loadings, and fast dispersion time.
The advanced additives offer performance at very low use levels and incorporate multifunctionality.
CW: What are your most recent product launches?
Piggott: CRAYVALLAC LV additive is a third-generation polyamide rheology modifier with easy activation and high performance in solvent-free systems. It is designed for use in Solvent-free epoxy and polyurethane coatings for marine, protective and general industrial applications, as well as industrial wood coatings. It exhibits easier activation and higher performance when compared to previous generation polyamide rheology modifiers. Formulation benefits include excellent sag resistance and very good shear thinning for spray application of coating
CRAYVALLAC OPTIMA additive is a third-generation polyamide rheology modifier with a wider activation window in high solids epoxies. It is primarily used in hot spray applications in marine, protective and general industrial applications where good sag during the application or onto hot substrates is needed. It exhibits a wider activation window than second-generation polyamide rheology modifiers, good hot spray application tolerance, excellent intercoat adhesion resistance and high sag resistance.
Trang: In the year 2020, we proposed to the coatings and paints market, a new polymeric wetting dispersant, Coadis 790 for water-based industrial & architectural coatings, inks and pigment concentrates a new solvent-free liquid polyurethane thickener Coapur 520 W with a very balanced rheology profile contributing to high-shear viscosities and medium-shear viscosities.
Grabacki: • mju:wax 7902: micronized powder; matting, soft feel, cost-efficient, low slip values, transparency
• ULTRALUBE D-888: multi-component wax dispersion, abrasion-mar-scuff resistance, anti-blocking, matting, UV water wood/furniture coatings application
• SILCO SPERSE HLD-1211: Wetting and dispersing agent for waterborne metal coatings, water-based anti-corrosive primers, and direct-to-metal systems, suitable for one-layer / two-layer systems for stabilization of TiO2, fillers, and carbon black
• VARIPHOB HY 300: All-in-one hydrophobicity by hybrid technology; reduce re-drying time, improve moisture vapor impregnation, improves hydrophobicity and early water resistance, free from cyclic silicones
• AGOCHEM SAM 100: Formaldehyde Scavenger; low odor, improve indoor air quality, captures formaldehyde, VOC free
Choo: • CeraSPERSE 87NS – a polymeric compound designed to provide high COF while maintaining high gloss. It is ideal for wet non-skid. This product is recommended for non-skid applications such as airport walkways and automotive showrooms.
• HydroCER 135 – An aqueous amide wax dispersion designed to provide water repellency, slip, and release for architectural finishes.
Ruckle: Especially because there are no trade shows, we have focused our 2020 marketing efforts on existing products.
McPhee: Troy recently introduced Troythix 200X & 220B, advanced rheology modifiers for non-aqueous systems. The new performance additives provide anti-settling & sag resistance properties with little to no impact on apparent viscosity for improved application properties. The rheology modifiers are intended for use in pigmented systems that need a boost in anti-settling and sag resistance without notable changes in the mid-shear viscosity profile. Additionally, these additives prevent hard caking of pigments and resist seeding, while offering low activation temperatures (45°C). Troythix 200X & 220B offer excellent performance that meets or exceeds market standards, and further broaden and diversify Troy’s Performance Additives portfolio.
CW: How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact the additives market in 2020?
Trang: There is a continuous and growing demand for Rheology and dispersing additives with more and more demanding and challenging requirements. Nevertheless, lower demand was observed in various regions at different times and the major challenge was on lead time for deliveries as transportation, ships and trucks availability is reduced. Coatex has the ability to produce and supply from all regions over the world, allowing good flexibility in the supply chain to continue delivering our customers and limit the impact while assuring our employees to work in safe conditions
Grabacki: Initially, we saw the automotive market hit particularly hard, while markets like mulch colorants, architectural coatings and other markets were mostly unaffected. Automotive has since started to make a bit of a comeback.
Choo: COVID-19 posed logistical challenges with respect to the additives market with manufacturing companies, for suppliers and customers alike, having to work around Stay-at-Home orders as the pandemic peaked and ebbed. Flexibility and adaptability were key to ensuring a reliable supply of products, as well as the ability to manage inventories and associated costs proactively.
Ruckle: For us, our customers are all still buying, but orders are smaller and further apart causing an across-the-board softening of demand.
McPhee: Adaptability is one of Troy’s strengths, and as such, the company has been well-suited to handle variables in the marketplace and business environment. Troy’s contingency plans have been well-planned and implemented to allow us to adjust to these unprecedented times. As such, the company has remained fully operational to serve its customers with products and services worldwide without significant interruption. While there are many COVID-related uncertainties in the near term, the coatings industry currently remains strong. An unexpected effect on additive demand was seen with a steady increase in DIY product sales in 2020, which in turn fueled customer demand for Troy products and services. We are seeing high demand for our products and services worldwide, and we expect this to continue, while at the same time remaining vigilant and well-prepared for future COVID-related effects, as well as for the recovery period in 2021 and beyond.
CW: What types of additives does your company manufacture?
Piggott: Arkema Coating Resins produces functional coating additives for decorative and industrial coatings, sealants, inks and defoamers for paint.
CRAYVALLAC coating additives include rheology modifiers, surface modifiers, and flow and leveling agents.
CRAYVALLAC additives offer value-added properties to control rheology, to provide anti-settling properties, controlled thixotropy and antisag properties. The surface modifiers permit to control matting, anti-abrasion, slip and rub, sanding and texturing. The flow and leveling agents offer superior recoatability.
CRAYVALLAC coating additives are available around the globe.
Trang: Coatex is designing and producing rheology modifiers and dispersing agents, acrylic thickeners (ASE and HASE), polyurethane thickeners (HEUR) and copolymer or polyacrylic dispersants.
Grabacki: High-performance PE/PP and functionalized synthetic and compound wax produced in flakes, beads, and micronized powder forms. Water dispersions of waxes of the various types are available in nano- and micro-particle sizes. Silicon and Siloxane-based additives are available for general usage in paint-coating-ink applications.
Choo: Shamrock supplies additives that impact surface properties of inks and coatings, such as slip, feel, look, anti-blocking, water repellency and resistance to abrasion. These additives are based on both natural and polymeric molecules ranging from paraffinic waxes to fluorinated materials. Shamrock is also the leading recycler of post-industrial fluoropolymer materials, enabling circular use of otherwise highly persistent waste materials.
Ruckle: Silicone-based additives
McPhee: Troy manufactures a full range of liquid and powder performance additives as well as driers for coatings. This portfolio puts the company in a unique position, being the only full-range manufacturer of both biocides and additives. Value-added performance additives are essential to the formulation, production, and application of high-quality coatings, whether for architectural or industrial use, and aqueous or non-aqueous systems. Wetting and flow & leveling additives, such as Troy’s Troysol products, control a wide range of product properties, enhance surface appearance and integrity, and eliminate film defects. These additives allow the formulation of films with excellent resistance to mar and abrasion, with increased surface slip. Wetting and flow & leveling additives also allow for coating over many substrate types, including contaminated substrates. Dispersants, such as the Troysperse line, ensure optimum color strength and uniformity.
Defoamers, such as Troykyd additives, eliminate entrapped air so that bubbles and pinholes don’t degrade the applied coating film. Thixotropic agents and rheology modifiers, like Troy’s Troythix products, improve the storage stability, application, and appearance of manufactured products and production processes, and enable precise control of the rheological properties of the materials to which they are added. Troythix rheology products enable control of viscosity, settling resistance, and sag resistance. Additionally, Troy offers Powdermate powder coating additives, performance a variety of functions, such as flow & leveling, degassing, and texturing. Troy’s metal carboxylates include a broad range of Troymax and Troycat driers as well as anti-skinning agents.
CW: What are the latest technologies being developed for use in paint and coatings?
Piggott: Legislation continues to push towards greener technologies with lower VOC contents. This trend comes along with specific challenges related to rheology, particularly for industrial coatings. Those paints present logically higher viscosity but also different drying profiles and are more difficult to spray. To control rheology is key to ensure coatings stability, ease of application and to ensure thickness control. It is why our additive department developed a rheology modifier suitable for higher solid content (very high solid and solvent-free. Crayvallac rheology modifiers can help to face up these challenges.
However, they need an activation step to provide the rheological network that will bring the rheological benefits. This activation is performed by using heat and shear and is dependent on solvent type and content. Therefore we focused our efforts to develop additives that will be easier to activate in fewer solvents for those specific new coating systems.
Grabacki: Multi composition wax products in micronized and water dispersion forms to minimize the number of additives for achieving paints and coatings’ complex performance. Hybrid Silicon oil and Polymer products to fulfill the unique characteristics of paints and coatings towards defoaming-leveling-wetting and pigment dispersion properties.
Choo: In response to tightening regulatory oversight on PFOA and related substances in Europe, as pertains to material and parts, Shamrock developed new testing and manufacturing technologies to ensure compliance, to help customers future-proof their formulations as the regulations evolve and get derogated. We have launched a new series of PTFE-containing products that are well in compliance with the <25ppb threshold, and continue investing in expanded capacities in our plants globally to serve customers.
Ruckle: A lot of our customer projects are focused on germicidal coatings for various substrates.
McPhee: Troy is a company built on innovation, and is committed to the research & development of the latest technologies to enable customers to lead in the marketplace.
Troy is continually expanding its Z-line of performance additives, which are developed specifically for ‘green’ systems. These Z-line additives are free of VOC, HAPs, and APEO, and offer performance at low use levels, making them ideal for modern aqueous formulations. An example is advanced Troysol ZLAC, a ‘green’, multifunctional, silicone-free additive that improves substrate wetting, flow & leveling, adhesion, gloss, and color uniformity in aqueous coatings and adhesives. The highly effective additive offers enhanced control of coating surface properties and the elimination of surface defects, such as crawling and cratering. Troysol ZLAC can help formulators achieve enhanced performance in many different applications, and offers performance at low use levels for minimized cost-in-use.
The Troysperse ZWD series of high-performance dispersants is engineered for formulators requiring excellent color development capabilities, high pigment loadings, and fast dispersion time.
The advanced additives offer performance at very low use levels and incorporate multifunctionality.
CW: What are your most recent product launches?
Piggott: CRAYVALLAC LV additive is a third-generation polyamide rheology modifier with easy activation and high performance in solvent-free systems. It is designed for use in Solvent-free epoxy and polyurethane coatings for marine, protective and general industrial applications, as well as industrial wood coatings. It exhibits easier activation and higher performance when compared to previous generation polyamide rheology modifiers. Formulation benefits include excellent sag resistance and very good shear thinning for spray application of coating
CRAYVALLAC OPTIMA additive is a third-generation polyamide rheology modifier with a wider activation window in high solids epoxies. It is primarily used in hot spray applications in marine, protective and general industrial applications where good sag during the application or onto hot substrates is needed. It exhibits a wider activation window than second-generation polyamide rheology modifiers, good hot spray application tolerance, excellent intercoat adhesion resistance and high sag resistance.
Trang: In the year 2020, we proposed to the coatings and paints market, a new polymeric wetting dispersant, Coadis 790 for water-based industrial & architectural coatings, inks and pigment concentrates a new solvent-free liquid polyurethane thickener Coapur 520 W with a very balanced rheology profile contributing to high-shear viscosities and medium-shear viscosities.
Grabacki: • mju:wax 7902: micronized powder; matting, soft feel, cost-efficient, low slip values, transparency
• ULTRALUBE D-888: multi-component wax dispersion, abrasion-mar-scuff resistance, anti-blocking, matting, UV water wood/furniture coatings application
• SILCO SPERSE HLD-1211: Wetting and dispersing agent for waterborne metal coatings, water-based anti-corrosive primers, and direct-to-metal systems, suitable for one-layer / two-layer systems for stabilization of TiO2, fillers, and carbon black
• VARIPHOB HY 300: All-in-one hydrophobicity by hybrid technology; reduce re-drying time, improve moisture vapor impregnation, improves hydrophobicity and early water resistance, free from cyclic silicones
• AGOCHEM SAM 100: Formaldehyde Scavenger; low odor, improve indoor air quality, captures formaldehyde, VOC free
Choo: • CeraSPERSE 87NS – a polymeric compound designed to provide high COF while maintaining high gloss. It is ideal for wet non-skid. This product is recommended for non-skid applications such as airport walkways and automotive showrooms.
• HydroCER 135 – An aqueous amide wax dispersion designed to provide water repellency, slip, and release for architectural finishes.
Ruckle: Especially because there are no trade shows, we have focused our 2020 marketing efforts on existing products.
McPhee: Troy recently introduced Troythix 200X & 220B, advanced rheology modifiers for non-aqueous systems. The new performance additives provide anti-settling & sag resistance properties with little to no impact on apparent viscosity for improved application properties. The rheology modifiers are intended for use in pigmented systems that need a boost in anti-settling and sag resistance without notable changes in the mid-shear viscosity profile. Additionally, these additives prevent hard caking of pigments and resist seeding, while offering low activation temperatures (45°C). Troythix 200X & 220B offer excellent performance that meets or exceeds market standards, and further broaden and diversify Troy’s Performance Additives portfolio.
