Coatings World recently interviewed some of the leading resin suppliers.

CW: How did the resins market fare in 2020?

Kittler: 2020 was a tough year for resins as every market that they are used in was impacted by COVID.  While the impacts varied by end-use, the fact was, the there was so much uncertainty from month to month made it difficult to forecast, which made it extremely hard to maintain supply chains and continuity with the frequent fluctuations in demands.  The markets that we sell resins into varied dramatically in demand throughout 2020 – the DIY paint market saw continued demand throughout the year driven by the home and work and learn from home environment. Many chose to use the time to repaint, repair and coat decks and rooms in their home and bought consumables to substitute for family vacations.  The boat, pool and grill markets are examples of the diverse markets that were strong throughout the year as “stay-cations” and homeschooling drove consumers to find new ways to create family time.  

On the other hand, some traditional markets suffered from stay-at-home restrictions – commercial real-estate building and refurbishments were dramatically impacted from work from home policies, while automotive and automotive refinish markets were also impacted by people sheltering in place.

Dumain: It was a wild ride for the markets in 2020. We started with reasonable demand, followed by the 2nd quarter trough as the magnitude COVID-19 became reality, The second half of the year was marked by a sharp recovery in certain segments, as people adapted to working from home and shifting their discretionary spending to improving their home environments. As a consequence, applications that support DIY saw very heavy demand, especially in architectural coatings and home improvement products.

Industrial coatings were a mixed bag – automotive had a sharp downturn as consumers huddled at home, though showing signs of life, while metal finishing products like appliances and lawn and garden furniture were healthy because they supported ‘stay-at-home’ behaviors. 

Luna: This is a dynamic, constantly evolving market where customers are always looking for new ways to innovate and bring new solutions to their own customers.

In 2020 we saw some interesting growth in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region, and the construction coatings segment due to increases in construction and homebuilding. And as we all know, the DIY coatings segment had significant growth during the year because people spent more time at home due to the pandemic.

CW: How did your company mitigate the negative impacts of COVID-19 on business?

Kittler: We were able to navigate through 2020 by focusing on the markets that saw increasing demand while shifting the resources away from the softer markets.  We were able to refocus our teams and pivot resources to areas that needed additional focus while maintaining our focus on core markets. We focused our commercial and technical teams on customer-centric activities and providing solutions as supply chain impacts became apparent in certain areas of the market.

Dumain: First and foremost, our employees’ safety was paramount, so first steps were taken to ensure new protocols were established in our manufacturing assets and R&D labs to ensure our workers’ environment remained safe and healthy. We were able to keep our factories running despite the pandemic, which is a real tribute to the teamwork of many functions working toward the same goal. We also accelerated our use of digital tools – producing and presenting webinars featuring product new products for architectural, industrial and functional coatings, as well as presenting themes related to sustainable building solutions.

Luna: We successfully navigated a challenging year by having robust innovation pipelines and successfully pivoting to digital platforms for our sales and marketing activities. We continued to engage with our customers by leveraging the digital tools available, including webinars, virtual conferences, and social media.

Schlager: The pandemic quickly drove the need to develop new work processes, leverage transformative technology and adapt to our “new normal.” The creation of stronger communication conduits with our internal and external customers allowed us to stay well connected, informed and service our customer base effectively.

CW: What are some of the demand’s customers are making on their resin suppliers?

Kittler: The general demands that we are seeing are driven by our customers either needing a compliant technology or looking for impactful changes. Many of the markets are at a point where existing performance meets the need of the market and incremental improvements are not an attractive use of resources. We work with customers that see the need for game-changing improvements such as; reduction in the number of layers in a coatings system or alternative cure systems. We are also seeing demand for products that improve workforce safety, eliminate harmful raw materials and even increased demand for sustainable offerings.

Dumain: As the market strengthens and demand continues, our customers are focusing more on establishing reliable long-term consistent supply. Strategic relationships between formulators and suppliers are more important than they have been in a really long time. The greater demand, combined with tightness in key feedstock markets, makes those relationships crucial to competing in the current marketplace.

All of that said, performance and innovation remain important. Customers expect solutions that will allow end-users to be more productive and more profitable. Technologies that allow faster curing at lower material utilization with fewer energy inputs, all while carrying a smaller environmental footprint, will continue to be sought after.

Luna: Increased performance and sustainable product innovation are areas of interest in the coatings and adhesives industries. It’s the reason we are constantly bringing new technology and customized polymers to manufacturers of paints, coatings and adhesives, which helps them bring innovative new products to market.

Customers at this time are also looking for products that offer cross-market versatility, like our own EPS 2559, which offers excellent attributes for the architectural, construction and industrial metal coatings markets; and our EPS 2293 offers outstanding performance in both concrete and wood coatings.

Schlager: In product development, there is continued interest in reducing free monomer levels and VOCs to meet evolving regulatory challenges.

CW: How does your company manage to balance customer demands with the rising costs?

Skarvan: As a result of COVID recovery strongly increasing demand and unprecedented supply-side issues coming from amongst other things, the storms and power outages in Texas, the petrochemical market is under remarkable strain with major product groups being in extremely short supply. All producers through the coatings value chain need to work with customers to manage both supply and pricing so; as to maintain long-term industry health. Increased communication and expectation management are key. 

Dumain: Customers seek value above all else. Arkema strives to offer an array of products that are engineered to match customer price-performance targets – ‘good, better, best’ choices allow formulators to decide which offerings best meet their needs. Resins that are more challenging to produce or have specially procured raw materials must create value for our customers to be successful. Customers’ understanding of value is almost always enhanced when we as a supplier truly understand their market needs.

A final point – strategic relationships with formulators are very important to identify global end-user customer needs. If we can develop products that excel across geographies, our customers can leverage those products to make their operations more efficient and cost-effective.

Luna: The focus of EPS has always been developing and maintaining close and responsive customer partnerships. These relationships allow us to deliver differentiated value-added technology that enables our customers to respond quickly to market requirements. Our customers value our commitment to quality, exceptional formulation, and application technical support.

Constant engagement and communication with our customers allow us to achieve important goals, whether it’s minimizing additives, improving attributes like dirt pick-up resistance and VOC compliance, or achieving lower applied costs, just to name a few.

Shlager: The Market Based Management® philosophy under which Georgia-Pacific Chemicals operates, seeks to create outcomes of mutual benefit for both us and our customers with the goal of becoming a preferred partner.  The needs of each customer are considered on a case-by-case basis. We want to meet their needs in a way that creates value for both the customer and Georgia-Pacific Chemicals.

CW: What are some of the latest sustainable technologies your company has launched?

Kittler: We launched our ECOWISE branded portfolio, which is a selection of products meeting stringent environmental, health and safety requirements while having enhanced performance to create an additional value for our customers. The product line is designed to deliver the greatest combined value for our customers, society and the environment. We have also been focusing on developing isocyanate-free technologies, such as our ACURE product line. ACURE technology provides an extremely fast cure while allowing an extended pot-life.  The ACURE product line is a safer offer to other alternatives that allow a reduction in energy consumption and reduces the level of waste generated. ACURE technologies have the performance profile to be used in markets such as industrial metal, aerospace, flooring, marine and protective – while being more sustainable. 

We have a global waterborne footprint that is used to create low VOC paints used across many markets, we look to create new technologies derived from natural and sustainable sources and work with many external organizations to understand how to develop products that lessen the impact on the environment..

Dumain: Regulations are getting tighter everywhere in the world, For example, in China, specific taxes for VOC releases have been implanted while in Europe focus on VOC reduction, clean energy, and environmentally friendly raw materials have driven innovation.

We have been active for several years in anticipating the demand from each type of technology -from UV/EB and Powder technologies to waterborne (latex, alkyd emulsion, water-dilutable alkyds, acrylic polyols for 2K systems) to high solids solvent-borne technologies.

We actively watch all new regulations in order to drive our R&D projects and anticipate the next steps. All our new developments have a touch of sustainability: some examples include low VOC emulsions, biobased raw materials, products that conform to eco-labeling and high durability non-isocyanate (NISO) products.

In addition to resins with very high solids, Arkema has been developing technologies for industrial paints and varnishes without VOCs such as aqueous solutions, photo-cross-linkable varnishes and powder paints (100% solids content). To this end, the Group invested in 2019 in increasing the capacity of photo-cross-linkable resins in Nansha, in China as well as in a new polyester powder resins plant in Navi Mumbai, India, two technologies with estimated 5-7% global growth rates.

Luna: We offer a broad portfolio of APE-free acrylic resins that allow our customers to meet their sustainability requirements with no compromise on performance, like EPS® 2799 and EPS® 2720, which can be formulated into near-zero VOC, high-performance paints with our EPS® 9147 coalescent.

It is also worth mentioning EPS® 2580, a self-crosslinking polymer that provides the capability to formulate direct-to-metal coatings at <50g/L VOC, while offering excellent performance for metal adhesion, corrosion resistance and high-temperature block resistance.

CW: Please list two new resins developed by your company.

Kittler: We have a new product line based on Michael Addition chemistry in our ACURE line.  This is a unique isocyanate-free technology that has distinct cure properties that allow infinite control of cure speeds while having extended pot-life – up to 24 hours in some cases.  The ACURE product line provides premium performance and has seen early adopters targeting such diverse markets as industrial flooring, industrial metal, aerospace, marine and protective.

We created a new line of 2K acrylic polyols that have eliminated some of the issues with current technologies. They are fast-cure, have extended pot life, and are less impacted by environmental conditions, allowing cure at very low temperatures, while at the same time, high temperatures do not shorten the pot-life.  This product line is designed for use in traditional markets such as automotive refinish, industrial metal, marine and protective. 

Skarvan: Allnex, as a leader in non-isocyanate chemistries, continues to develop cutting-edge solutions in this space at both the primer and topcoat levels. To this end, allnex has developed new ultra-low VOC formulations for the market with its patented ACURE technology which delivers ultra-fast curing, high solids and long pot life without isocyanate. As isocyanate has become extremely tight from a supply standpoint interest in Acure and other non-isocyanate systems has increased dramatically. Allnex also has an exceptionally fast-drying non-isocyanate system called Ketac and new and improved systems are being developed and offered.

Dumain:  ENCOR 317 high-performance vinyl acrylic is a new binder that meets Master Painters Institute® standards (based on internal studies and testing) in interior coating formulations. ENCOR 2793 functionalized pure acrylic waterborne binder that has a unique combination of multi-substrates adhesion and stain blocking performances. REAFREE 5706 polyester, a new, highly versatile, product for use in superdurable powder coatings bringing outstanding flexibility properties.

Luna: In 2020 we launched the EPS 2400 Series, a new line of six acrylic resins for industrial wood applications. Coatings formulated with these resins offer increased durability and beautiful, high-performance finishes, as well as excellent mechanical and chemical resistance, good hardness/flexibility ratio, exceptional leveling and faster dry times. This balance of properties streamlines production and reduces manufacturing times.

Another one of our recent launches is EPS 2252, high solids acrylic emulsion designed to adhere to low energy substrates commonly used in roofing, like TPO and EPDM. It provides the capability to formulate coatings at <50g/L VOC.

Schlager: Our product development has been focused on supplying low-free monomer resins for the coatings, foundry, and composites industries.  Two specific examples of recent introductions include GP® 7575 designed for curing epoxies with REACH-compliant bisphenol A and free formaldehyde levels for non-food contact applications. In addition, our GP CL-7002 with a low free phenol count is used as a modifier for powder coating applications.

We also announced a collaboration with UK-Based manufacturer Bitrez specializing in REACH-compliant, low free-monomer resins that we market in North America. These efforts have expanded our portfolio to encompass additional products with low free monomer, low bisphenol A and low formaldehyde levels. CWTim Kittler, allnex, marketing manager, Americas, allnex Liquid Resins & Additives Business Unit and Robert Skarvan, global marketing director, allnex Liquid Resins & Additives Business Unit; Eric Dumain, global marketing director, Coating Resins Business Unit at Arkema; Jose Luna, global marketing director at EPS – Engineered Polymer Solutions; and Robert Schlager, coatings account manager, Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC.