This year’s “BYK Advance” prize was awarded to the team behind the development of a new family of hydrophilic additives, with its flagship BYK-3560.
 
Many unresolved issues with overcoatability in the coating industry were the drivers and motivation for developing the hydrophilic additive concept. The first development BYK-3560 is definitively a breakthrough product and a contribution to BYKs strategic goals to uncover its customers’ challenges and provide them with unique solutions.

BYK-3560 increases the surface energy of cured coatings overall, especially the polarity resulting in an improvement in the adhesion of subsequent layers such as in automotive multilayer coatings, lamination foils, adhesives, printing inks etc. The next development BYK-3565 incorporates additional beneficial effects on the hydrophilic properties. The challenge consisted not only of increasing the surface energy unilaterally but also visibly improving the coating’s anti-crater properties. BYK-3565 was already been rewarded with the Ringier 2016 Coatings Technology Innovation Award.

BYK-3560 and BYK-3565 are both based on the macromer technology and are recommended for a wide range of water-borne, solvent-borne, UV-curable and high solid systems. They set a new standard with the use of hydrophilic additives for overcoatability improvement in multilayer coatings.