Customized Coating Formulation

Customized Coating Formulation

High Performance waterborne, solvent based and UV Curable technologies to meet your specific needs in Environmental Regulations, Application Specification, stringent physical properties and product differentiation.

MATCO's Paints and Coatings Specialists have more than 25 years experience in formulating and developing organic coatings. MATCO Paint & Coating Testing also has proven expertise in analyzing organic coatings from substrate to exposed surface. The techniques are available to assist in early detection of potential problems in coating formulas. Experience in analyzing an array of coating types gives MATCO's coating specialists valuable recourses to cut R&D time to months rather years. Statistical design and six sigma techniques are utilized to optimize the development process of:

• Corrosion Resistant Primers
• High Performance Weather Resistant Topcoat and Elastomers
• UV Curable and Ambient Cure Coatings
• Repair Coatings

Why Customize Formulation?

Meet VOC and Air Quality Permits requirements Communities enforce environmental regulation to limit emission and venting of Hazardous and polluting chemicals. Grandfather clauses allow plants to continue manufacturing but limit expansion and use of these sites. One solution is to introduce new formulas that lower emission and increase production. For example, Aluminum Can plants manufacture million of cans for beer and beverage packaging. These plants were in compliance with VOC regulation (2.1 lb /gallon of coatings) but they manufactured so many cans that Northern California decided to set a limit to the annual tonnage of emission. Ball Metal Container that was located close to their major customer, Anheiser Busch, decided to seek a coating that would allow it to manufacture sufficient cans to supply Busch and complied with tonnage imposed by the Bay Area Environmental Commission. To achieve their goal they finally settled on VOC limit 1.6 lbs per gallon of coatings. This was good for business because they maintain relation with the community and also met company goals of expanding production at a key site.

Satisfying Application Specification Lowering cure temperature or shortening the dwell time of thermal cure coatings can produce two benefits. Consider the rising cost of energy, and its effect on overhead, lowering cure temperature may be an effective approach to cost containment. Reducing dwell time allows faster through put of coated products that raise productivity. Introducing new or improved coatings that will cure at a lower oven temperature will lower manufacturing cost. Thermoset coatings cure cycle can be accelerated by catalyst or changing cross-linker like melamine resins that are designed to cure at lower temperature. Coatings that were initially designed to cure at temperature in 350 - 400 0F range can be reformulated to cure in 220 - 275 0F range. This can be real cost reduction.

There are many application requirements that are better handled by reformulating the coatings. Such as lower wet film thickness for gravure roll application, lower viscosity coatings for airless spray guns and rheological modification to improve esthetics of cured coatings. Customize formulation saves time and money over an off the shelf product.

Develop Physical Properties for Functional Coatings Formulating coating for specific properties provide robust application parameter that allow for consistent product properties. Off shelf products are design to perform well for an initial customer and it may be robust in some area whereas, they have weakness in areas that may be vital to your operation. Epoxy - polyamide primers designed for marine type application are sometime used in industrial application where they are degraded rapidly by environmental conditions.

Epoxy - Phenolic Formaldehyde coatings are used in interior lining for drums and food containers. Although this type of coating can hold acidic and alkaline products, these linings can fail if the filling temperature of the products is very high. The ratio of epoxy to phenolic formaldehyde in coatings determines the pH of the products that are packaged in those containers. Sometimes a 50:50 ratio is recommended to cover a wide range of products without regards for the filling temperature or other unique product requirements. These oversights often lead to corrosion and contaminated product that is unfit for sale.

Two Component Polyurethane coatings sometimes fail to deliver the performance the customer was expecting because the level of accelerator used to reduce dry time makes the coating brittle. Simply selecting a high performance binder system will not guarantee the desired mechanical or physical properties. Customized formulation makes sure that the appropriate physical properties are met before the product is scale-up.

Product Differentiation Coatings used on product can create a distinct difference between one product and another. For example, automobile paint job on an expensive import clearly differentiate it from a low cost domestic vehicle. The paint job is insufficient to make the car a higher value, but without the luxurious finish the shopper may not look at the more important features. Identification markers may be included in a customized finish but simply having better physical properties can differentiate one product from another. Coatings technology also differentiates one product from another, example, powder coatings have very high build, tough, and glossy finish that looks different from standard solvent based coatings.

Using Advance Coatings Technology such as UV curable Coatings can differentiate one product from another. Plastics products are painted to give appearance of wood or metal substrate. UV curable does not require temperature that could warp or degrade certain types of plastics so product can be formed from less expensive raw materials and then painted to give the desired effect.

Customized coatings can introduce new technology that may improve productivity. OEM Automotive coatings are applied in multi-layer that requires a bake cycle after each application. There are ideas to apply a wet on wet method and complete the process by have one bake that cure the wet on wet complementary coatings. These concepts are available to small manufacturers only by seeking out customized formulation.

MATCO As Your Partner

• MATCO Coatings Specialist will research, formulate, test, and develop coating systems with most appropriate binders to meet your specification.
• Conduct appropriate accelerated testing to benchmark formula against industrial standard
• Provide physical test data on performance of the new product verses industrial standards
• Use Analytical technique to support visual test results
• Develop coating Manufacturing Specification and scale-up requirements and recommendation for out-sourcing at toll manufacturing.
• Provide Scale-up samples for line-trial and adjust formulation to optimize performance
• Oversee initial manufacturing, Quality Control, and approval of initial batch at toll manufacturer.