Dow Coating Materials presented a technical paper on the use of “Designed Diffusion” technology to reduce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in hybrid acrylic/urethane furniture coating binders without sacrificing performance at the Furniture Coatings Conference in Berlin, Germany, on March 3, 2010. In his presentation titled, “The Use of Designed Diffusion Technology in Binders for Furniture Coatings with Unique Properties,” Guy Clamen, technical group leader for industrial coatings in EMEA, explained how this new technology can help furniture coatings formulators maintain high coatings performance while satisfying recent EU directives on VOC emissions.
    
“We took a designed diffusion technology approach for waterborne acrylic/urethane hybrid binders to help formulators achieve a unique combination of low film formation temperature and high hardness properties,” said Clamen. “This technology offers the performance of polyurethane dispersions (PUDs) at high acrylic levels in acrylic/urethane hybrids.”