Waterborne latexes are produced via emulsion polymerization, in which surfactants or emulsifiers are the key components to control latex properties. Much effort has been made to reduce the impact of surfactants on the performance of waterborne formulations. One of the promising approaches is to use polymerizable or reactive surfactants to prepare latex polymers. 

Many waterborne coating formulations utilize eco-friendly biopolymers, which have beneficial properties such as being biodegradable, and contain much fewer VOCs. Today, there are renewable materials that are worth consideration and greater investigation to further improve sustainability of products at the end of their useful lives; these materials are carbohydrate-based polymers produced from starch.

As the coatings industry continues to prioritize waterborne systems, further research to provide coatings with comparable properties to those based on solvent-based systems is required. This paper, winner of the PCI Award for Technical Excellence at the 2023 Waterborne Symposium, presents a surfactant-free encapsulation process that enables the enclosure of polysiloxanes of arbitrary molecular weight in capsules of nanometer size in a simple, scalable process. 

Increased regulatory scrutiny of lead, chromium, and zinc is driving the migration to heavy-metal-free corrosion inhibitors. In this article, several water-based resin technologies were selected to demonstrate the performance of heavy-metal-free corrosion inhibitors versus their zinc-containing counterparts.

This month’s Formulating with Mike column continues the focus on resins and discusses acrylic emulsion polymerization, in particular, surfactant design and how it affects the polymerization of a vinyl-acrylic emulsion.

The market for architectural coatings is projected to grow from $85.1 billion in 2023 to $102 billion by 2028, at a CAGR of 3.9%. Read about key factors that provide market players with growth opportunities, as well as the potential challenges players could face during the forecast period.

This month’s Formulating with Mike column covers the life cycle assessment of alkyd emulsions and concludes the four-part series on alkyd emulsification.

This article explores one company’s efforts to further advance global industry trends such as electrification, energy, resilient infrastructure, and sustainability through innovation and advanced coatings.

Abrasion is one of the most important defects that deteriorates the durability of coatings. The goal of the research presented in this article was to achieve a good understanding of the effects of coating additives on the abrasion resistance of waterborne coatings.

The new resins have a renewable carbon content, can be formulated and used without hazardous ingredients found in most competitive products, and were developed to have efficient crosslinking with environmentally compliant carbodiimide-type crosslinkers.