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.

LANXESS Corporation has announced the retirement of President and Chief Executive Officer, Antonis Papadourakis. Frederique van Baarle, member of the Board of Management and Labor Direcor of LANXESS AG, assumed the role of President and CEO for the company’s Americas region on Oct. 1.

This article describes a new higher-block-resistance VAE under development that significantly minimizes the trade off between block resistance and scrub resistance in VAE-only paints. Additionally, this new VAE continues to maintain high scrub resistance even in low-sheen paints, enabling the formulator to use a single-VAE binder across all sheens.

Ohio EPA’s E3 Award program recognizes organizations for their activities that reduce environmental impact, conserve natural resources, and result in long-term economic success. 

The ranking reflects the company’s excellent global economic performance, which has been growing steadily for almost two decades, its demanding strategy in terms of social and environmental responsibility, and an HR policy focused on employee well-being and commitment.

New capacity is available to support and advance downstream polyurethane growth in the automotive, construction, consumer, and industrial markets.

The new digital application, called “MyCarbonFootprint,” is designed to help customers gain a better overview of the sustainability status of the product portfolio they purchase from BASF.

The company's nine manufacturing sites in Brazil are now powered with electricity solely from renewable energy sources, helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition to a low-carbon economy. 

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.

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.