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contaminants contained in our products, thereby ensuring
your safety in accordance with the principles of the chemical
industry’s Responsible Care Program. In addition to the safety
issue, the environment is also one of our concerns, so all of our
process stages are controlled in such a manner is to do no harm
to nature,” says Nitemar Vieira, coordinator of Lanxess’ Latam
competence center.
It is worth pointing out that Law no. 11,762, which limits the
content of lead in decorative, toy and school paints, varnishes
and other similar surface coating materials, has been in force
since February 2009.
Epoxy Resins - Performance Commodities
With their outstanding cost-benefit ratio, epoxy resins en-
sure chemical and mechanical strength, heat resistance and
corrosion resistance, while featuring good adhesion to the most
varied of substrates.
Epoxy resins are considered not only key materials in the paint
industry, but also performance commodities in several other
industries, while following world trends towards affordable,
technologically advanced and much more sustainable products.
New technologies appear constantly in the epoxy market, not
only in resins, but also in combinations of epoxy resins and
curing agents. “Epoxy resins have evolved to the point of allo-
wing us to use smaller amounts of organic solvents with epoxy
systems, as is the case with lower-viscosity resins and waterbor-
ne systems. Heat resistance and improved mechanical strength
a part of the technology developments in epoxy resins, including
multifunctional epoxy resins with more linkage points for curing
agents and a differentiated molecular structure, which provide
improved heat resistance, chemical strength and mechanical
strength,” says Huntsman’s marketing manager Ronny Konrad.
Manufacturers of epoxy resins currently see to combined quality
products with low costs and high availability, while ensuring
key properties of their product, such as chemical and mechani-
cal strength, excellent dimensional stability, great aesthetical
finish, etc. Low-viscosity, zero-VOC (volatile organic compounds)
resins are now a reality, replacing waterborne products and
their inherent inconvenience of co-solvents and water con-
tent. While the fixed costs of producing epoxy resins have been
rather stable, the prices for the commodities required in epoxy
resin formulations most keep pace with the instability in oil
prices. Customers are still absorbing well the installed capaci-
ties around the world, as the epoxy technology still provides the
