30 September 2010 13:23:00 | Posted by: Sonja Schulte, European Coatings Journal Green adhesives
Two weeks ago I attended the FEICA European Adhesives & Sealants Conference in Helsinki, Finland. The program was mainly focused on market topics. The good news is that markets for adhesives are growing globally next year. However, I was specially interested in technical trends in adhesive formulation. Apparently, many people are working on bio-based and degradable systems. Experts I talked to expect these products to be available on the market in 1 to 2 years. However, some interessting research results are already available.
23 September 2010 11:38:00 | Posted by: Kirsten Wrede, European Coatings Journal News about carbon nanotubes
A while ago I wrote about carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in this blog (see my entry of 26 January, 2010). Enthusiastically I recorded that CNTs have the potential to generate completely new materials and products with characteristics and combinations thereof that were not feasible with previous technologies. In the meantime a lot of new findings have been published, basically agreeing to this assessment.
For decades, the use of plastic components in automotives has experienced enormous growth rates. While the outer designs of automobiles have become more and more similar, it is the interior of a car that can now distinguish one model from another. Coatings have come to play an important role in this respect. They can improve the surface of both exterior and interior parts visually, but they are also used to generate comfortable tactile properties like soft-touch, warm, matte and leather-like.
I just edited a review article on polyurethane coatings, which will be published in the October Issue of the European Coatings Journal. Polyurethane polymers started their trimphal procession in the 1930s and it is still going on, e.g. 2k systems account for 80% of topcoats/clearcoats in car refinish. Nowadays formulating low VOC, waterborne coatings with PU is possible without sacrifying performance.The newest generation of wateborne systems can match the performance of most solvent-based systems. Market perfomance of PU coatings is also quite well. Although the economical crisis affected the coatings industry in general an annual growth of 6% in isocyanate consumption over the next fice year is predicted. The coatings industry still has a lot of new developments for PU coatings in store for a greener, safer and smarter future, but there is still scoope for improvement.
