Awakenings in Nuremberg

The parallel European Coatings CONGRESS again reflected the current issues in the industry: 160 top speakers from all over the world and spread across 26 technical sessions addressed all the major fields of paint manufacturing and its allied industries – from water-borne paints to nanotechnology and smart coatings through to polyurethanes, printing inks, adhesives and sealants, and construction chemicals.

More Research and Development
Dr. Sonja Schulte (Vincentz Network) opened the session with the results of a poll of pre-registered congress participants. Around 25% had responded to the organizers’ questions about their views on the current state of research and development. Despite the difficult, complex economic situation, some 31% of respondents indicated they were investing further in research and development. Some 65% were maintaining their activities and only 4% were reducing their research budgets.
This shows the high status enjoyed by innovation, especially in times of crisis.

In the two plenary lectures, everything revolved around the future of the coatings industry. Neal Williams of Akzo Nobel gave a paint-maker’s perspective of what the coatings of tomorrow will look like. Over the next ten years, Williams believes the pace of innovation will be increased, with consolidation in the market driving on research and development. According to Williams, environmentally sound, thin, smart coatings will play a key role in the market. Dirk Mestach from Nuplex Resins illustrated the challenges facing binder manufacturers after 2010. Both papers may be downloaded in full from www.european-coatings.com under “Videos” and are also available as a free audio pod cast.

Another highlight of the plenary event was the presentation of the European Coatings AWARD, which the European Coatings JOURNAL donates for the best congress paper. This year’s prize went to the author team led by Dr. Zhenwen Fu and his team, who won over the jury with a paper on film formation in water-borne coating systems. The authors scrutinized, inter alia, the mechanism by which solvents are released during film formation. Their novel technology permits low-VOC coatings to be formulated which do not impair other properties, such as hardness.

This was a highly regarded session. Dr. Sandra Hofman from Dow Europe presented a comprehensive overview of self-healing coatings technologies. Natural polyols can be used to formulate acid-resistant coating systems, which continue to heal even after repeated physical damage. Gerald Wilson from Autonomic Materials also presented self-healing polymers as a new class of smart materials.
And, as was impressively demonstrated by Professor John Texter of the Eastern Michigan University, nanolatexes can also be used to produce self-cleaning surfaces. Moreover, these coatings are transparent, weather resistant, have good adhesion and are corrosion resistant. Dr. Syed Haseebuddin, Asian Paints, went one step further. He presented self-cleaning pigmented water-borne coatings, which are also heat sensitive. At elevated temperatures, they are super-hydrophobic and at low-temperature, super-hydrophilic. This behaviour is achieved through a targeted combination of polymers and functionalized pigments.

Nanotechnology has long been a reality in the coatings industry. It is used, for example, to selectively improve properties, such as the mechanical stability of coatings. Scratches are an all-too-familiar problem, especially for high-gloss and dark surfaces. For years, inorganic nanoparticles were postulated as one way of improving scratch resistance. However, there are always compatibility problems during processing that lead to agglomeration, turbidity and increased viscosity. Gerhard Jonschker, Merck KgaA, presented a new approach. Core-shell particles not only serve to increase scratch resistance but are also readily processed since they exhibit compatibility similar to that of organic resins. This technology utilizes a new polymerization process which yields nanoparticles with a polymer shell. The polymer chains are covalently bound to the nanoparticles but react with the paint by virtue of their chain functionality. The nanoparticle is thus an integral part of the coating. The covalent bonding of the nanoparticles to the polymer chain masks the inorganic character, which is responsible for the compatibility problems. Additional dispersing agents are not needed for core-shell nanoparticles. They can be dispersed direct, without the need for dispersing additives.

The key phrases in this session were environmental friendliness and high performance. In the first lecture, Dr. Marie Noyale Bleuzen, Rohm and Haas, presented advanced technologies for formulating high-performance water-borne masonry coatings that have reduced environmental impact. This is achieved by pigment encapsulation technology. Such coating systems are characterized by strong adhesion. The partial replacement of TiO2 by an opacifying polymer enhances resistance to pollution and boosts the reduction of mildew and algal growth. One challenge still facing formulators is that of high-gloss water-borne systems. Joseph Brown, Dow Europe, presented a water-borne acrylic binder technology which combines structured particle morphology with a surrounding crosslinking mechanism. This can serve to formulate high-gloss systems of low VOC content. That water-borne systems can compete with solventborne coating materials was demonstrated by Ronald Tennebroek from DSM NeoResins + in his paper. He presented new ecologically sound binders that offer improved gloss and body.

An online survey of all pre-registered congress visitors yielded unequivocal results. For the bulk of respondents, water-borne coatings are the most important technology of the future. Congress set aside a total of three technical sessions to deal with this technology, including a focus on water-borne corrosion-protection coatings. Water-borne anti-corrosion resins may have passed through many stages of development in recent decades. Nevertheless, there is still enough room for further developments. Thus, Oihana Elizalde from BASF SE presented new approaches to water-borne corrosion-protection binders. These hybrid binders feature improved barrier properties, very low water absorption and enhanced corrosion protection.

With a total of three technical sessions, adhesives and sealants were very strongly represented at this year’s congress. According to Stephan Hinterwaldner, chairman of the morning session on the second day of congress, the combination of papers on current market developments and technically demanding presentations went down very with participants. Dr. Andreas Hartwig of the Fraunhofer Institute IFAM delivered a paper on alternative hardening reactions and properties for silicone-based adhesives. He dealt at length with replacement of platinum by non-metallic catalysts.

Printing inks were covered in two technical sessions and 13 papers. Particularly popular was the presentation by Steven Zijlstra, BASF Netherlands, on a new generation of water-borne binders for the manufacture of printing inks for flexible packaging. The paper by Katia Studer, Ciba Switzerland, on UV-curing systems for sensitive applications was very well received, too.

Improved protection of architectural structures, environmental compatibility, energy savings, faster and easier application and improved design properties dominated the technical session on construction chemicals. Oliver Mogck from Clariant Produkte (Germany) presented an exceptionally well regarded paper on polyglycol methacrylates as new monomers for concrete superplasticizers.

Not only innovative raw materials, but optimized production processes also contribute to improved efficiency of coating systems. No fewer than five papers were delivered on the not-to-be-underestimated topic of production technology. The most popular proved to be the that of Dr. Ludger Fischer, Serendip, Switzerland, who spoke about nanoparticles for coatings that are made with the aid of a new dispersion technology.