The coating additives business unit of Evonik Industries Group announced that it has developed the PHERILEX® Silicon Dioxides wet chemical process. The material produced by this manufacturing process has a unique spherical particle morphology, which can provide coatings with advantages that traditional Silicon Dioxides do not.
Allegedly, changes in wet reaction process conditions allow control of many aspects of the final product, such as pH, surface area, pore volume, and other structural or morphological factors. As a result of this new wet chemical process, Evonik launched three new Silicon Dioxides products for paints and coatings, namely SPHERILEX® DP-0111, SPHERILEX® DP-0112 and SPHERILEX® DP-0115.
In the paint and coating industry, Silicon Dioxides are recognized as excellent matting agents. However, its functional characteristics ultimately depend on many different factors, such as particle size, particle size distribution, particle morphology, etc. In other words, controlling these aspects means controlling the performance and benefits of Silicon Dioxides. As far as modern architectural coatings are concerned, polishing resistance and wet wear resistance are key formulation challenges and important differentiating factors. With existing filler or formulation options, formulators can only rely on limited support to overcome the challenges of differentiated products. These properties can be directly related to the particle morphology of the filler and the film surface profile obtained thereby. Evonik ’s latest technological advances have produced new synthetic Silicon Dioxides with unique spherical particle morphology, narrow particle size distribution, and extremely low surface area and porosity.
In addition, regulatory issues and other challenges have led to a reduction in the amount of materials available for formulation. For example, the solvent softens the polymer, allowing it to flow more freely to surround and wet the pigment particles in the coating, thereby enhancing the bonding ability of the binder. Due to the requirement to reduce VOCs, these solvents are now more and more difficult to buy on the market, so formulators must seek new ways to minimize the need for binders in the solids of their formulations.
The new SPHERILEX® technology solves these challenges in coating formulations and provides functional Silicon Dioxides products with unique properties that help formulators realize new value in the technology of synthetic Silicon Dioxides.