PHILADELPHIA - Zhenwen Fu, a scientist with Rohm and Haas’ Paint and Coatings Materials division, was awarded Best Paper recognition during the 2009 European Coatings Show Congress held in Nürnberg, Germany. Fu’s paper presented findings related to a new diffusion technology in latex paint film formulations. In latex-based coatings, VOCs are used as coalescents to ensure film formation. This new technology significantly improves early property development of waterborne latex coatings in a reduced, low-VOC formulation that maintains coalescence performance to achieve required hardness, block, print and dirt pick-up resistance necessary for industrial coatings.

 

“Producing industrial coatings in reduced-VOC latex paint formulations has been increasingly difficult to achieve while still meeting required environmental regulations,” said Fu. Designed diffusion technology as advanced by Fu’s is a paradigm shift in film formulation that balances coatings properties through careful design of the polymer system and the selection of a coalescent package with unique partition coefficient and diffusion rate between different phases of the polymer system. This paper presents detailed evidence of this designed diffusion technology with analytical, physical and application data.

 

Fu has contributed to over 50 patents and publications in the areas of metal and semiconductor clusters, analytical method development and instrumentation, latex film formation, colloidal science, paper coatings, and inkjet ink technology.