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Reducing Level of Alcohol in Inks ‐ A medium‐sized US ink manufacturer recently needed to reduce the level of alcohol in its bases for water‐based inks. Ciba Geigy Pigments Division's Inks Technical Centre developed an improved formulation, containing half the alcohol of the previous one and 40 per cent more pigment to allow the ink producer to meet VOC limits and increase production efficiency, at no additional cost.

Controlling paint production. Paint users are placing higher demands on the manufacturer. All paint producers should now consider data acquisition — and possibly automated paint manufacturing if the volumes of certain products will justify it.

Highlights Health and Safety with regard to the paint and coatings industry, recent legislation has been designed to put pressure on paint manufacturers to preserve the ecology, protect the environment and increase health and safety at work. Outlines the major guidelines introduced by the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations and the Construction (Design & Management) Regulations to help paint manufacturers to rise to the challenge of manufacturing products that are safer, both to the user and to the environment and which at the same time complement industry initiatives.

Traditionally aerospace coatings have been formulated for performance. In an extreme case a faulty coating could contribute to an accident on a catastrophic scale. The demands on aerospace coatings are severe because aircraft have unusual requirements. These requirements are dictated by the environment in which modern aircraft operate, the nature of the structure of the airframe, the way they are painted and the way in which they are used. As a consequence of all this, the paints which have been formulated for aerospace use usually differ from paint used in other industrial areas. It has often meant using ingredients which are regarded as hazardous either to health, such as chromate pigments, or to the environment, such as large quantities of strong solvents. Bearing this in mind, modern formulations have had to evolve, improving performance and taking into account the results of using hazardous ingredients which might affect users of the coatings, innocent bystanders and the environment. Here we consider the conflict between these influences and show the position reached within the industry.

New types of phosphate pigments which are appropriate alternatives for hazardous chromate pigments have been prepared and evaluated. These new pigments were prepared via a new technique named core-shell. The core-shell materials consist of at least two separate phases with different chemical compositions. Recently, these materials have become more significant because they have the advantage of gathering the properties of both cores and shells that help to overcome the defects that they might possess individually. The purpose of this research is to develop a modified silica fume-phosphate core-shell pigment that contains 80-90 per cent of waste material (silica fume) and at the same time can offer promoted mechanical and anticorrosive properties than silica fume and they can also be compared with phosphates. The pigments have shells of Zn, Mn, Zn.Mn phosphates comprising about 10-20 per cent.

The prepared core-shell pigments have been characterized using several methods, which have then been integrated in alkyd paint formulations. The physical and mechanical properties of dry films and their corrosion prevention using accelerated laboratory test in 3.5 per cent NaCl for 28 days are estimated.

This study showed that the performance of these new pigments is highly efficient in corrosion protection, and it can be a suitable alternative to phosphate pigments despite containing phosphates which does not exceed 20 per cent of the composition.

Waste materials were reused in paints and only simple modification was used; their effectiveness was high and can be compared with well-known pigments.

Silica-phosphate core-shell pigments are environmentally friendly pigments that can replace other hazardous pigments (e.g. chromates and phosphates) with almost the same quality in their performance.

LETTER FROM AMERICA Valspar Unit to Acquire Cargill The Valspar Corp. has announced that it has reached an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission that will allow its subsidiary, McWhorter Inc., to acquire Cargill Inc.'s Resin Products Division.

When this Review was started in the early fifties, one would have been hard pressed to find articles in the paint literature about pollution. Some articles appeared about safety and toxicity and, of course, pollution was recognized as an undesirable factor. But that pollution, toxicity, and safety would one day occupy a major role in the activities of industry was hardly predictable.

Making Fine Powders ‐ Extremely fine and uniform particles, of 5–50 nanometers, have been produced by a process being developed at Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories. Researchers have used the technique to synthesize new, highly dispersed catalysts with a high surface area. It offers a way to make other products which have improved properties: ceramic ball bearings and gears which are stronger and more durable than those available today, and pigments for paints and inks.

There is no question but that the paint industry is responding to the pollution problems associated with its activities. That pollution can reach a state of hysteria, however, is indicated by the fact that the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Health and Welfare held a public hearing on a bill introduced by a councilman to outlaw epoxy paints in Philadelphia. This is not quite on a level with the story, probably apocryphal, that the Indiana legislature many years ago entertained a bill to establish the value of the mathematical constant pi at 3.0 rather than at the more complex and difficult to deal with figure of 3.1416. It does demonstrate the critical lack of understanding on the part of the layman, however, who in this instance has confused the effects of solvent and vehicle and, in so doing, has created economic loss for those who must take time to testify at hearings.