The Covid-19 pandemic and the associated Lockdowns, with stringent restrictions on travel and public gatherings have had a devastating impact on trade fairs and exhibitions this year. Normally, these events provide excellent venues for exchanges of ideas and business deals, as well as platforms for showcasing innovations and new products.
Early casualties included the Paint India Exhibition & Congress (Mumbai) and the Middle East Coatings Show (Dubai), both of which had been scheduled for the second week of March. The next big paint industry event to be cancelled was the American Coatings Show (Indianapolis), hosted by the Vincentz group, which should have taken place towards the end of March. Surfex, organised by the Oil & Colour Chemists Association (OCCA), was originally due to be held in Coventry in June. It was then postponed to September, but OCCA has now rescheduled the event so as to take place during the second week of June 2021. Recently, the DMG Events group notified cancellation of its two paint industry events scheduled for September – the rearranged Middle East Coatings Show (Dubai) and the Asia/Pacific Coatings Show (Jakarta). The Abrafati Congress in Sao Paulo, traditionally the highlight of the Latin American paint industry every October, has also been cancelled.
The Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining was obliged to cancel its Vinyl Forum in Edinburgh, which was due to take place during the fourth week of April. The event has now been rescheduled for the second week of May 2021. More recently, Applied Market Information (AMI) announced that it was postponing its four exhibitions – Compounding World Expo, Plastics Recycling World Expo, Polymer Testing World Expo and Plastics Extrusion World Expo – from early October 2020 to early June 2021. The venue in Essen (Germany) remains the same. The premier technical trade fair for the cosmetics industry – InCosmetics Global, hosted by Reed Exhibitions (part of the RELX group) – was going to be held in Barcelona at the end of March this year. The event was initially postponed for three months, then postponed for a further three months. The idea of holding the event in 2020 has now been abandoned and the 2021 InCosmetics Global trade fair will now be held in Barcelona (not Milan) in mid-April 2021. The 2020 regional InCosmetics trade fairs for North America and Latin America have also been cancelled, but the analogous Bangkok event is expected to go ahead as planned in the first week of November 2020.
Executives from companies supplying pigments to the paper, rubber, pharmaceutical, food and other industries have been similarly disappointed by the unavoidable postponements or cancellations of major trade fairs and exhibitions affecting their end-use sectors. But, while news of innovations has been somewhat muted as a consequence of the absence of display stands at exhibitions, there have certainly been several new product launches that may be of interest to our readers.
Chemours (headquartered in Wilmington, DE), the world's leading TiO2 pigment producer, is making its first serious attempt to enter the printing inks sector with the launch of Ti-Pure TS-4657, a specially designed low-abrasion chloride-route TiO2 pigment. TiO2 requirements for printing ink formulations are normally fulfilled by sulfate-route grades, notably TR-52 from Lomon Billions and RDI-S from Venator. In the press launch heralding its new product, Chemours stated: “Using the chloride process (for TiO2 manufacture) produces a whiter and brighter pigment than the sulfate process, enabling the formulation of inks with higher opacity in a broader range of colours. Historically, pigments produced by the chloride process had an abrasion level that was too high for the inks market, causing excessive wear on the printing plates. This new specialty grade Ti-Pure TS-4657 is the ideal choice for creating water- and solvent-based inks used in flexographic, digital, and gravure printing of labels and packaging.”
On 28 May 2020, Shepherd Color (headquartered in Cincinnati, OH) declared that its Blue-513 or YInMn Blue – pronounced “yin-min blue” and marketed under Shepherd's product code Blue10-G-513 – has been added to the US Environmental Protection Agency”s (EPA) TSCA Inventory. For the purposes of regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act 1976, a chemical substance which appears on the Inventory is deemed to be an “existing chemical”, whereas a chemical substance that is not (yet) on the Inventory is deemed to be a “new chemical” and therefore automatically subject to sales restrictions. The Inventory also contains “warning flags” for an existing chemical that warrants restrictions as to its manufacture or use. The entry for Shepherd's YInMn Blue shows no such warning flags. This means that the pigment is now fully approved for use in a wide range of commercial applications, as well as in the formulation of artists’ colours.
YInMn Blue – a novel chromaphore, containing yttrium, indium and manganese atoms in a trigonal bipyramidal crystal structure – was discovered by Dr Andrew Smith and Prof Mas Subramanian at Oregon State University in 2009. Rights to manufacture the new blue pigment were granted to Shepherd Color in 2013 and it received approval from the EPA for industrial use under a low-volume exemption in 2017. Shepherd Color stated: “High-performance paint companies and engineering plastics companies have been impressed with its visual opacity, colour and near-infrared reflective properties. This balance of visual aesthetics and infrared functionality gives it unique properties that allow building products to have deep, rich blue colours which stay cooler when exposed to the sun. It offers a unique shade of blue for artists’ colours. It also facilitates the formulation of dark blue-shade colours for building products with high solar reflectance. YInMn Blue exhibits excellent weathering properties. Other attributes include high stability to heat and UV radiation. YInMn Blue is marketed as a dry powder pigment that can be easily dispersed in a paint or plastic material. Certified testing by Duke University found no toxic component or contaminant level or effect of the product itself that would require hazard labelling to conform with the ASTM D-4236 criteria. Also, the pigment does not require labelling under California's Proposition 65 regulations.
In recent years, Schlenk (of Roth-Barnsdorf, Germany) has patented a novel technology for making a a new type of coloured aluminium ultra-thin pigment (UTP), using a much thinner substrate layer than conventional metallic effect pigments. With a reduction in the thickness of the pigment, there are more flakes at the same weight. More flakes means more covered area, which in turn results in better hiding power. Other advantages are: high colour saturation, better storage stability and greatly reduced safety risks. Dr Adalbert Huber described the UTP concept in a paper delivered at the Smithers TiO 2 & Coloured Pigments Conference in Alicante (October 2017). Earlier that year, Schlenk had launched the first of the Zenexo range of pigments, which are manufactured by employing UTP technology. This was Golden Shine 21-YY. Two more pigments have been added to the Zenexo range over the past nine months: Zenexo GoldenWhite WB-21-YS, which provides elegant champagne colour tones in powder coatings; and Zenexo Golden Shine WB-21-YY, which provides a golden yellow tone. All three pigments have a particle size distribution D50 of merely 21 microns. All three Zenexo pigments offer excellent hiding power and a superior flop effect. Thanks to the special WB surface treatment, the two latest pigments have excellent weathering and humidity resistance, as well as compatibility properties in multiple applications, especially for waterborne systems. The pigments are supplied as dry powders and safety is assured in terms of transport and storage. Zenexo pigments are destined mainly for applications in paints, inks and plastics.
On 23 April 2020, Merck (headquartered in Darmstadt) announced a new addition to its Ronastar Lights series of pigments for cosmetics formulators – Ronastar Blue Lights. This is a blue interference pigment which provides a ‘living sparkle' effect even at very low dosages. Having a very fine particle size, this pigment is ideal for modifying any shade and pastel nuances, adding a luxurious touch to all colour and care cosmetics. Dr Beate Anniés (Head of Cosmetics) and Dr Dorothea Wenzel (Head of Surface Solutions) commented: “With Ronastar Blue Lights, colour is not the limit. Perfectly fitting to latest colour trends in decorative cosmetics, it adds gorgeous effects to temporary hair colorants. In care products, the hovering marbles of indigo sparkle can help our customers – the cosmetics formulators – underscore their marketing story like moisturisation, marine active ingredients or clean beauty. The engineered high-tech architecture of the Ronastar Lights series of pigments is based on a combination of innovative substrate technology and precisely applied layers of metal oxides. The pigments thus feature uniform thickness and an extremely even surface. This inorganic composition provides highest stability combined with a smooth skin feel.”The new pigment complements the existing Ronastar portfolio, which consists of the two interference pigments Golden Lights and Red Lights plus the two masstone pigments Flaming Lights and Dazzling Lights.