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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Stringent VOC content rules on Architectural and Industrial Maintenance (AIM) coatings have recently been enacted by federal, regional, and state regulatory agencies. These new rules effectively ban the use of low-solids solventborne alkyd resins, despite their excellent properties, ease of use, and low cost. In response to these new regulations, alkyd producers have been developing higher solids and waterborne alkyds, but these new resins do not perform as well and are more costly...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Every manufacturing business today is under pressure to reduce costs, increase profits, and meet ever-increasing service requirements from customers. In coatings companies cost reduction programs have focused primarily on reducing costs in manufacturing and administration. The challenge is to reduce costs while improving service to customers. An area that most coatings companies often overlook as an opportunity for reducing costs and improving customer service is the warehouse...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - For millennia shrouded in history, man has had a roof overhead, be it made of stone, twigs, ice, thatch, slate, wood, asphalt, tin, steel, painted metal, tile, and various and sundry materials. All served, to one degree or another, to keep out the elements and maintain the interior of the dwelling at a livable temperature. For the vantage point of those who are living in the first decade of the Third Millennium A.D., not much has changed—many, perhaps all, of these materials are in use...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - The objective of this article is to highlight the markets for radiation curable products in China as the Chinese market has been growing rapidly in recent years. This report summarizes the input of around 81 leading companies, including 31 that produce raw materials (chemicals), 51 that manufacture UV products (where eight of them supply both) and six suppliers of UV lamps and equipments (some of them supply multiple products). The growth rates of raw materials and UV curable products...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Plastic substrates often offer an unfriendly surface for coating applications, resulting in insufficient adhesion of applied coatings, inks, and adhesives. This paper presents a new priming process which overcomes the problem of poor adhesion of ultraviolet (UV)-curable coatings on plastic surfaces. In this process, the plastic surface is activated by a plasma or corona treatment and then a special primer composition is applied as a thin layer to form a covalently attached primer...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Organic coating formulations are complex mixtures of ingredients including resins, crosslinkers, catalysts, pigments, pigment dispersants, solvents, and other additives. In order to prepare a robust, commercially successful coating, all of these ingredients must be carefully optimized. Evaluation of all of the possible variables involved in developing a coating system is a daunting task for the coating formulator. Consider the example of a solventborne, two-component polyurethane...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Frequency dependent dielectric measurements using in situ micro sensors, FDEMS, is a particularly useful technique for monitoring the changing state of a coating during synthesis, cure, and aging.1 Measurements can be made in the laboratory to monitor the polymerization process in a flask, to monitor cure in an oven or under a UV lamp, and to monitor durability and aging in a weather controlled environmental chamber or other degradative environment. Equally important, the FDEMS in situ...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Beginning in the 1970s, research electrochemists and materials scientists began to discover the power of Electrochemical Impedance Spectros-copy (EIS) as a tool for studying difficult and complicated systems. Although this series of articles is aimed at the coatings scientist who is interested in EIS for coatings evaluation, EIS has application in virtually all areas of electrochemistry. This first article focuses on the general theory of EIS, and some of the instrumentation required to make...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Consumers can easily be confused by the abundance of choices to make when selecting a clear wood finish. There are many types of clear finishes with different characteristics and product claims. This article is designed to help consumers sort out the different finishes and effectively choose which product would be best for their purpose. First, we cover the causes and mechanisms of wood degradation. It is important to know what we are protecting wood from and why. Then we describe in detail...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Part 1 of this series (August 2004 JCT CoatingsTech, page 46) described Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) in general terms. In Part 2, the focus is on painted metal substrates and how their specific characteristics affect the EIS measurement and interpretation. Part 3 will address experimental protocols using EIS to test the performance of paints.
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - This is the first of two articles that provide an in-depth discussion of how a major manufacturer and distributor of chemicals recently used metric and process benchmarking to reduce its cost per order and improve the efficiency of its main distribution center. This first article describes how the company used benchmarking to identify problem areas and develop effective solutions to these problems. The second article describes the solutions that were developed, the implementation process...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - As the coatings industry faces rising cost pressures and ever more burdensome regulatory requirements, manufacturers of products throughout the value chain have begun to rely increasingly on innovation and new product development to remain competitive. Innovation and product development, however, cannot occur in a vacuum. Market research serves the critical function of providing information about the market that can guide R&D efforts within a company.
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - In Parts 1 and 2 of this Series, we discussed the technology of applying electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) to organic coatings on a metallic substrate such as aircraft, marine, or industrial maintenance coatings. This article describes several experimental protocols to evaluate these coatings with EIS. These experimental protocols differ primarily in the process used to stress the coating and accelerate the degradation of the coating.
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - DBNPA is a powerful biocide with two unique properties: it kills micro-organisms immediately upon addition and it degrades rapidly. Although DBNPA is compatible with many chemical classes, including oxidizing agents, it will react readily with nucleophilic agents and sulfur-containing reducing agents. The facile reaction of DBNPA with sulfur-containing nucleophiles common to microorganisms, such as glutathione or cysteine, is the basis of its mode of antimicrobial action. DBNPA is therefore...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - We describe novel applications of phosphate functional monomers in polymers obtained by radical polymerization. These polymers are designed to improve the dry/wet adhesion of coatings and adhesives on metal surfaces. Two phosphate monomers were incorporated smoothly into the polymer resins without major formulation or procedure change. These monomers have been used in a wide range of applications to improve the properties on a variety of substrates. They dramatically improved adhesion as well...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - In the first article we described the concern that a manufacturer and distributor of chemical products had because of an increasing number of complaints from customers. These complaints focused primarily on quality and service issues related to the distribution function. In addition to the complaints from customers, management was concerned with a trend of increasing cost per order.
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Radiation curable coatings have been used in the wood coatings industry for several years. Major benefits of radiation cure are the high curing speed and high crosslink density. High performance coatings with extremely low VOC/VHAPS, excellent abrasion, as well as chemical resistance, are obtained.
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - In recent years, the major emphasis in the coatings industry has been adapting to environmentally friendly technology that has all the key performance attributes of traditional solventborne systems. Lately, automotive OEMs have suggested the use of “greener coatings technologies” for the “end of line” repair and body-shop refinish applications. This “market pull” effect has rejuvenated interest among innovative resin manufacturers to bring novel concepts into this field...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - This article describes a new class of urethane acrylate oligomers for weatherable UV-curable systems. Unlike commercial urethane acrylates that are based on polyether or polyester polyols, this new class of urethane oligomers is based on acrylic polyols. These new acrylic polyols are unique in that they produce low-viscosity, nongelling urethane prepolymers with isophorone diisocyanate. These prepolymers can be further treated with hydroxy-functional acrylates such as hydroxyethylacrylate...
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FSCT - JCT CoatingsTech - Antiskinning agents are used to control the oxidative curing of tung oil catalyzed using a cobalt drier. Additives agents that are too volatile result in the premature formation of a cured oil (e.g., skin), whereas antiskinning agents that are slow to release from the fatty oil may delay drying altogether. Methyl ethyl ketoxime is currently the most popular antiskinning agent; but due to its relatively high volatility coupled with associated health hazards, new antiskinning agents are being...