The Shepherd Color Company (Stand 9-340) specializes in key pigment technologies that allow customers to make differentiated and high-performance coatings. The company specializes in highly engineered inorganic pigments known as complex inorganic colored pigments (CICPs). These pigments have been the go-to pigments when the ultimate in durability, heat stability and general inertness are required. Shepherd Color CICPs provide the color in fluoropolymer coatings that have up to 40-year warranties!

Shepherd Color has worked to expand the range of CICPs to include:

• Infrared reflective pigment technology called Arctic^®, because it keeps materials cooler when exposed to the sun;
• Expanded and unique NTP Yellow and RTZ Orange pigment chemistries;
• Dynamix^® easily-dispersed pigment technology that takes the time-consuming and expensive steps out of pigment grinding.

The Arctic infrared reflective pigments are in their fifth generation of technology improvements. While dark materials heat up when exposed to the sun, Arctic IR black pigments absorb in the visible for dark colors, but reflect in the near-IR for lower surface temperatures when compared to standard carbon black pigments. The lower amount of energy absorbed is the technology behind ‘cool roof’ and ‘cool walls’ that are being specified in different building codes and programs. Shepherd Color IR blacks, such as Black 10G996, push the key properties of dark masstone color and high IR reflectivity, while the Black 30C941 add the easily dispersed (ED) Dynamix technology. Dynamix ED pigments disperse in solvent and waterborne systems under a high-shear mixing blade for full dispersion and color properties from lab-scale to full production. Shepherd Color has a full range of inorganic colors in the Dynamix system to fulfill any high-performance pigment need.

The Dynamix ED technology is also available for the company’s NTP Yellow and RTZ Orange pigments. The middle-yellow color space of the NTP Yellow 30C152 makes it the high-performance way to replace colors based on lead chromate yellow pigment. The RTZ Orange 30C342 is a useful tool to add high-durability red-value to other high-performance yellow pigments. Dynamix ED technology gives chemists the ability to formulate the pigments into new systems quickly, scale them up seamlessly, and produce large quantities with low waste and consistent batch-to-batch color. Together, NTP Yellow and RTZ Orange represent the edge of the durable color envelope in the yellow color space.

At ECS 2019, the company is launching a new pigment based on the NTP technology, Yellow 10G155. This new product offers the improved chromaticity and durability of the NTP Yellow chemistries, but is a closer offset to the redder shades of bismuth vanadate (PY184). It is another tool for chemists and formulators to utilize out of the wide range of tools that Shepherd Color provides.