Performance enhancement with silicone additives in the UV/EB coatings industry: New chemical developments

The control of interfacial tension phenomena in UV/EB systems has created many new manufacturing and formulating challenges. In particular, the types of ingredients and substrates utilized in conjunction with today's advanced UV/EB coatings systems generally exhibit significantly greater surface tension control challenges than their counterparts in traditional systems. From the coating formulator's perspective, one must design dependable, defect-free alternatives both for reducing surface tension and for optimizing performance; as a result, newly patented silicone chemistries have been introduced to provide a high performance cost-effective avenue of approach. Within the context of performance optimization, the following topics are discussed: The interdependence of surface tension and substrate wetting Crater formation and elimination Benard cells, flooding,flow, and air draft sensitivity Surface slip influences Foam removal The above subjects are presented within the framework of a critical overview of practical application data and proper additive selection criteria.