EUROPEAN COATINGS SHOW TRADE SHOW

Whether it is WB, SB, UV crosslinking, 1K, 2K, acrylic, PE, PU, or other, abrasion resistance is always one of the essential properties of your coating. A coating that resists to abrasion also lasts longer, contributing to a more sustainable world.
Arkema, as a key raw material supplier, participates in your formulation development. This presentation will focus on its high-performance additives, particularly for improving abrasion resistance in coating.

Cooperative discussions among industry leaders with focus on high-performance, tangible, and inspiring solutions that represent the future of the industry:

• Driving the changes: Addressing consumer expectations and the request for more informed choices,
• Inventing the paint of the future: Introducing low-carbon options with bio-circular content, leveraging formulation intelligence,
• Decarbonizing the built environment: A Roadmap to Net-Zero Prepainted Metal Infrastructure
• Transforming the EV market: Exploring how coatings play a role in improving EV battery safety and enabling lower carbon intensive processes.

More information

One of the biggest challenges faced by the built environment is to reduce its environmental footprint as buildings are responsible for about 40% of global energy related CO2 emissions. The effort to decarbonize the sector were initially focused on improving building efficiency, but since the last decade, emissions of the materials are gaining more and more attention under the impulsion of the World Green Building Council with certifications such as LEED & BREEAM. With the progressing decarbonization of steel production, the impact of coatings will become more visible and will create a need for the value chain to develop lower carbon footprint coating solutions for the coil industry. Beckers and Arkema will present latest advances addressing all aspects of the value chain from the use of renewable materials, to the reduction of VOCs with high yield solutions and the development of disruptive technologies such as the UV/EB systems to lower emissions during the application process.

Innovations in architectural coatings are currently driven by sustainable solutions, focusing on low VOC, durable options, and reducing carbon footprints as key parameters. Waterborne alkyd emulsion is one of the preferred technologies to meet these market needs.
Among the various requirements such as UV resistance, hardness, and dirt pick-up resistance, achieving water resistance remains one of the most challenging. Exterior substrates are exposed to severe weather conditions throughout their lifespan, leading to issues like whitening, blistering, and surfactant leaching.
Relying on the polymerizable surfactant technology, a new generation of alkyd emulsions has been developed and exhibits excellent water resistance. The relationship between alkyd emulsion composition, polymerizable surfactant and their water resistance has been studied to optimize the paint formulation.
Other coating applicative performances are studied. Examples of formulation optimization will be presented and discussed.

The environmental footprint of buildings is responsible for 40% of global CO2 emissions. The effort to decarbonise was initially focused on the operational carbon by improving building efficiency. In a second step, emissions of building materials are gaining more and more attention under the impulsion of the World Green Building Council.
The paints and coatings industry is working on the decarbonization of the value chain. Multiple routes are being followed according to the product and industry involved. To solve the issues associated with this transition, collaboration is essential. To this end, we have created a three-way collaboration between two raw material suppliers and a paints manufacturer to demonstrate the potential. 
The goal of this study was to see to what extent existing formulation practices can be enhanced and stretched, to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of a decorative wall paint. Specifically, by using designed experiments and high-throughput-experimentation, it has been possible to create a performance map showing the extent and possibilities of carbon reduction. Raw materials based on renewable resources, recycled content and /or a mass-balance approach have been investigated. We used the latest data on carbon footprint, to understand what can be achieved if a reduction of 50% is targeted. Indeed, thanks to high-throughput experiments, a balance of performance versus the carbon reduction can be anticipated even beyond 50%. 

The most important mega trend in the powder coating market is the move to lower temperatures to achieve full curing. This change directly affects the main stages in powder coatings film formation: melting, flow, gel point and cure completion. These stages determine both the final paint aesthetic and protective properties.
In this study, rheological measurements have been utilised to determine the different phases taking place during the film formation process of powder coatings cured at low temperature. The use of dynamic viscosity/time (temperature) cure curves is a powerful technique to quantify formulation and resin parameters. The final aim is to identify the effect of certain resin features on the curing process to enhance resin design.
A variety of powder coatings were used in this study to cover the core market offer: HAA and TGIC polyester and hybrid epoxy-polyester systems.

To limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, more and more companies are adopting ambitious climate plans on their full value chain, including scopes 1, 2 and 3. With indirect emissions of paint formulators accounting for more than 90%, lowering carbon emissions from raw materials and application processes is imperative. This presentation will showcase concrete solutions illustrating our ecodesign approach, tackling several aspects of product life cycle, from safer products for people and the planet, to more circular and lower-carbon feedstocks, lower-energy coating technologies, and more durable coatings that use fewer materials and resources. These innovations provide a comprehensive roadmap with examples for each of the major coating technologies (waterborne, powder coatings and UV cured coatings), supporting the transformation of architectural and industrial coatings, enabling green buildings, electric mobility, and more circular packaging.