Revista Paint & Pintura - Edição 237

CLIPPING PAINT&PINTURA | Outubro 2018 | 7 SURFACTANTS - MORE EFFICIENT DEVELOPMENTS Surfactants are staying on the path of innovation, with prevai- ling formulations enhancing coatings performance and using APEO-free technology to meet customer-specific needs and requirements. The properties of surfactants are directly related to their chemical nature. Currently, there are various surfactant te- chnologies, each featuring a certain type of attribute to be imparted to the paints and coatings being formulated. The chief requirements thatmust be taken into considerationwhile choosing the right surfactant are leveling, substrate wetting, foam stabilization, adhesion between coats, and surface slip. “All of these properties are present in surfactants, and, depen- ding on their chemical nature, such properties may vary up or down in the coatings proper,” says Marlon Braidott, technical consultant on Additives for Latin America at BASF. Among the challenges facing this market is developing mate- rials that are increasingly efficient in terms of application and performance, which being more and more environmentally friendly throughout their life cycle. In addition, providing pro- perties based on customer-specific requirements also requires constant efforts, according to Regina Kawai, Coating Additives business manager at Evonik. “Manymanufacturing processes apply coatings at high rates of speed, creating large surface areas very rapidly. Surfactants need to migrate just as rapidly to those new interfaces so that you can achieve uniform subs- tratewetting. Dynamic processes call for lowdynamic surface tension. In addition to technical performance, formulators also seek environmentally friendly solutions, a powerful trend that exists in the surfactant market as well,” she says. ACRYLIC RESINS - NEW-GENERATION ACRYLICS There is a growing demand for acrylic polymer with superior performance, such greater hardness, chemical strength and weatherability, aswell as good pigment grinding performance, good spreading properties, and scratch resistance. In addition, they deliver favorable cost-benefit ratios as they are tailored to specific customer requirements, such as different OH va- lues, which means larger or smaller amounts of catalyst are required, depending on the performance to be achieved by the coating. “Many conventional resins that were used in the past have been replaced with acrylic polymers featuring improved performance in response to market demands. Acrylic resins have been covering more and more specific applications for various substrates, and that leads to continuous deve- lopment and improvement with a view to best serving our customers at all times. Currently, acrylic resins are displaying a considerable expansion in their various types of applications, andAllnex iswatchful of all these changes to ensure only the best is provided to our customers,” says LRA/XLR laboratory analyst Laís Pereira Tozzi. According to Denis de Almeida Luciani, research and development laboratory coordinator at Arkema, it has been increasingly common for acrylic resins to feature functionalities, as customers look for continuous im- provements in all sorts of paints and coatings, a new ideas and applications arise each day. “Using an acrylic resin product that has a functionality can really make a difference, and that’s how new generations of acrylics are born,” he says. COLORIMETRY - COLOR QUALITY CONTROL Right now, colorimetry represents one of the key invest- ment requirements to afford customers flexibility, cost reduction, waste reduction, and excellence in quality. In addition, the Brazilian marketplace has enormous gro- wth potential for these systems in view of its very large territory and the amount of companies doing business in it. “The market for colorimetric equipment has been growing year after year, 2016 being the only exception to this statement. Currently, interest in buying these devices has been shown not only paint and coatings com- pany in general, but also by manufacturing businesses in a number of other industries, such as plastics, paper, textiles, packaging, food and pharmaceuticals, among others. When we take some time to look at it, we see that everything has a color, and oftentimes there’s the need to standardize, control and reproduce such colors. In addition, this is one investment the return on which is guaranteed. Howmany times has products been returned for not being up to standard? Howmuch time canwe take away from the development of a new color? These are the questions Datacolor has been working on for more than 40 years to help our customers,” says Datacolor Brazil general director Ricardo Lovetro. According to Sergio RobertoMarigonda, sales executive at the MAST Group, while colorimetry is used in innume- rable products, the paint and coatings industry is the