Revista Paint & Pintura - Edição 232

and innovation, always seeking to adjust to ever-changing needs, improve our processes and reduce costs, and have a strict quality program in place, to which our products are a true testament,” Andrade concludes. RESTRUCTURING - CHEMOURS UNDERGOES TRANSFORMATION PROCESS Aproducer of titaniumtechnologies, fluorinatedproducts and chemical solutions, Chemours has moved into its new“home” in Brazil, at Alphaville Industrial, in Barueri, São Paulo. Over the past three years since the 2015 acquisition of DuPont, the company has gone through a transformation process. “In 2015, Chemours’ transformation plan was outlined based on five points, all aimed at improving our operation. It has led to cost reductions - we’ve seen more than 350 million dollars worth of them in the course of the past couple of years - as well as an investment shift, with capital channeled into areas that are guaranteed to provide a return and show great potential for growth, and an overall improvement in this organizational change process. There’s also been a re-staffing across the board, spanning the company’s operations worldwide. Today we have a much different culture, and we understand that change is part our company’s day-to-day business. Since this transforma- tion process is perpetual, we’ll always have news to tell. One such news was the company moving into our newoffices at Alphaville, in Barueri, São Paulo, whichwere formally opened back in 2017,” says Chemours Brazil president Maurício Xavier. Chemours has more than 200 years’ experience from its very birth, as its story dates back to the DuPont times. Now, after doing business as an independent entity for nearly three years, the company has seen its share value multiply, and expanded its business in the market for fluorinated products, chemical solutions, and titanium technologies, providing sustainability and performance for customers in various industries. For 2017, its turnover hit US$ 6.2 billion, up 15 percent relative to 2016. Its share value has grown 70 percent in the past year, as a result of a transformative plan the company rolled out in 2015. RAW MATERIALS - SPECIALIZING IN WATER-BASED POLYURETHANE DISPERSIONS Aiming to establish a pioneering business in Brazil, Nokxeller Microdispersions was created in 2005 to produce polyurethane dispersions (PUDs) using proprietary technology. “We’ve put together a team of experts with extensive experience in polymers and polymerization who are developing products focused on customer-specific and market-specific require- ments,” says technical manager Francisco Fava. Located in the industrial district of Cachoerinha, part of the Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul metropolitan area, Nokxeller’s operates from a built-up area of approximately 13,000 square feet, and employs 20 people. “Our company specializes in developing and producing a vast range of water-based nano and macrodispersions that are used for for- mulating paints and coatings for the most varied of applications. We do business directly in the industrial or B2B market. We supply formulators in the coatings industry, especially in market segments related to the leather goods and footwear, textile, woodworking, concrete, synthetic laminate, glass and flexo printing industries, among a number of other substrates involved,” Fava says. The product portfolio available from Nokxeller Microdispersions consists of a range of waterborne PU dispersion resins, using either aliphatic or aromatic monomers. “Our best sellers in volume are polyester and polycarbonate resins. These resin grades enable us to meet a wide variety of filmproperty requirements, from soft-touch, flexibility and elasticity to extremely high hardness. Formulator can build on the unique features of these resins. While the waterborne polyurethane dispersions we produce feature low Tg (glass transi- tion temperature) values, below minus 20°C, that doesn’t give them a tacky touch, unlike very-low Tg acrylic resins, which usually produce that undesirable result. This allows them to go into a wider range of applications where the paint job will be exposed to extreme temperatures—for example, at places where the weather goes below zero, or where the painted surface reaches very high temperatures, around 200°C. For this reason, our polymers can be used in coatings applied on highly flexible substrates, such as flexo printing inks, vinyl tarps, and the like. They can also partially replace plasticizers and coalescing agents in some cases, as in decorative paints, for example,” Fava points out.