The theme for Thursday’s New Tech Corner was Smart Additives. During the first session Mr. KP Chuah, technical service director, Asia Pacific, Elementis, presented “Go Green—Innovative Low/Zero VOC Additives for Waterborne and Solvent-Based Coatings.” Mr. Chuah spoke about the challenges that occur when a coatings formulation goes green. Both predicted and unexpected side effects are encountered when trying to reduce VOCs in paint formulations. According to the presentation, an innovative “green” additives package from Elementis Specialties is the solution for VOC reduction in waterborne coatings without losing key performance characteristics.

The next session was, “Controlled Polymerization Techniques—A Modern Way to Novel Polymer Additives for Coatings,” and focused on wetting and dispersing additives used to stabilize pigment particles in solventborne and aqueous coatings formulations. Presented by Mr. Pan Yong, lab supervisor and product group manager, wetting and dispersing additives, BYK, he said besides pigment wetting, their main function is to prevent flocculation of the particles by keeping them separated
through steric stabilization. To be effective in this way the additives have to absorb onto the pigment surface and build a protective layer around the particles. Such additives must have in their chemical structure one or more anchor groups for the absorption on the pigment surface and several polymer segments that are compatible with the binder system and create steric stabilization.

The next session was presented by Mr. Willi J. Mendel, technical market manager, Evonik Industries, and titled, “Easy to Disperse Innovative Preparations in Granule Form for Waterborne Applications.” It focused on an easy-to-disperse innovative preparation that is prepared by combining a novel acrylic resin, additive compound and high quality pigments. The dust-free preparations can be solubilized in water or a waterborne binder within 45 minutes using a dissolver and small amounts of
ammonia, amine of KOH resulting in a paste with broad compatibility with most waterborne materials. Conventional milling is no longer necessary. The focus of the presentation was on the performance of this innovative preparation in different coating systems showing evaluation results and application examples.

The final presentation was of the day was, “Environment Friendly Surfactants on Paints, Pigment Pastes and Emulsion Polymerization,” presented by Ms. Helen Li, assistant technical manager of FUN division, Clariant. According to Mr. Li, with the publishing of the new national regulation for emulsion paints in China, more and more manufacturers are starting to care about VOC content, APE content and other non-environmentally friendly/toxicant additives in their paint formulations. The focus on this talk was how to select suitable additives that are APE-free, low VOC and formaldehyde free and to support customers to find the solution to achieve national and global regulation requirements.