Editorial

Citation

(2004), "Editorial", Pigment & Resin Technology, Vol. 33 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/prt.2004.12933faa.001

Editorial

Colorants and polymers are the main ingredients in typical coating formulations. Progress in coating technology relies heavily on the advancement in the science and technology of colorants and polymers. Several papers in this issue concern the synthesis and characterisation of colorants and polymers for coating and coating related applications.

Professor Li and his colleagues reported their work on developing one-part ambient temperature curing polyurethane adhesives for wood bonding. The focus was on the screening and optimisation of adhesive formulations and on developing a technology for the manufacturing of low cost and high performance adhesive assemblies for structural bonding of timber materials.

Indeed, low cost has been a main drive in the past few years, across all industries. Readers are undoubtedly familiar with the phrase “driving cost out of business”, which has been in wide circulation. Such a drive towards lower cost manufacturing has encouraged many scientists and technologists to shift their focus to developing technology based on lower cost raw materials. A typical example of such a trend is demonstrated by the work reported by Professor Mirhabibi, a leading scientist in the field of material science, and his colleagues.

In their paper, Professor Mirhabibi and his colleagues investigated the technological issues relevant to the preparation of zinc yellow pigment as a substitute of the much more costly zircon praseodymium yellow pigment. Readers may find the interpretations given for the observations made of particular interest and applicable to similar systems.

Whilst well-known to coating scientists and technologist as binders, many polymers do have functions other then crosslinking to form network. For instance, amide polymers exhibit a degree of anti-oxidative function. Dr El-Adly and his colleagues reported their study of amide polymers as anti-oxidants for mixed soap greases.

Past years have seen a constant decline of the number of centres dedicated to research on synthetic dyes. Readers may be aware that, today, there are only a very small number of groups, around the world, conducting research into synthetic dyes. This is somewhat disappointing bearing in mind the vast number of application of dyes as a major form of colorant. The editor is therefore pleased to include Professor Asiri’s paper on the synthesis and characterisation of methine dyes derived from condensation of 4-nitrophenylacetonitrile and aromatic aldehydes.

One of the more important functions of coatings is protection. Coating’s protective properties can often be significantly improved by the inclusion of corrosion inhibitors. Mr. Elayyachy and his colleagues reported their investigation of the corrosion inhibition efficiency of novel tripyrazole derivatives, which readers may find interesting.