International. Sustainability is an important aspect in the development of new products. The companies Pintuco and BYK give an account of this.
In its latest sustainability report, the company Pintuco, recently acquired by the Dutch firm AkzoNobel, presented architectural solutions that for more than 15 years have been free of heavy metals. It also revealed industrial products that have reduced their levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), free of formaldehyde and TGIC.
In addition to the direct properties and effects of the product, questions about environmental impact, chemical basis and energy consumption often also play an important role. An important factor is climate change. Hence the measures of governments by imposing taxes on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions or the purchase of certificates that allow the buyer to emit a certain amount of CO2.
In that sense, Pintuco is one of the 100 companies that joined the national Carbon Neutrality program led by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development of Colombia, in order to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the country to 51% by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050.
Change in raw materials
In turn, many wax-based additives on the market comprise raw materials obtained from crude oil or gas. These range from traditional (high-density) polyethylene waxes to increase matting properties, or improve scratch resistance, to polypropylene or PTFE waxes for surface slip adjustment in coatings.
This is known by a global supplier such as BYK, which recognizes that although these waxes have a fairly good performance and have a beneficial factor, so they are designated in their applications, the use of bio-based raw materials has to be reviewed critically.
In a recent article by the company itself, it identifies factors that make a change necessary. Among them, crude oil is a finite raw material, so its availability decreases over time and it is necessary to discover, test and use new alternative raw materials.
It also refers to end-of-life options for products such as plastic waste, which is time-consuming to degrade in the environment.
Hence, BYK develops additives with improved sustainability such as ceraflour 1000, launched in 2011. This has properties specific to traditional additives made from natural or synthetic waxes, but is based on a bio-based polymer and is also completely biodegradable, allowing the plastic to be degraded by microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi in shorter periods of time.
A year ago, BYK expanded its portfolio with two new additives based on the same raw material, but with different particle size distributions: CERAFLOUR 1001 and CERAFLOUR 1002. All three have a bio-based content of less than 97% and are completely biodegradable.
The portfolios of these companies are just a sample of the path traveled by a sustainable future from the paints and coatings industry.
