In recent years, the focus on environmental protection and sustainability has increased rapidly. On one hand, there is a wide range of entrepreneurial approaches to the topic of sustainability. On the other, there are companies that take advantage of sustainability trends and profit from so-called “greenwashing.”1 Thus, the effort of the industry should be to support its customers and not to unsettle them. The following article illustrates a way of defining eco-friendly additives and hence helping customers by designing greener coating systems.
Additives are specialty chemicals and essential components in coating formulations. The application areas range from coatings for automotive, architectural or wood protection to printing inks, plastics and paper coatings. They are used in small quantities to optimize the production process and improve the product properties such as scratch resistance or surface gloss. Although it seems that the amount in the final formulation is negligible, the impact on the final product is extremely high. This and the fact that customers expect environmentally friendly products, e.g. odor-free or solvent-free, suggest that additives must comply with the same environmental regulations as coatings. But what does the term “environmental regulations” mean?