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Coatings Ingredients
SpecialChem

Self-Healing Technologies for Coatings

A self-healing additive is used in coating formulations to provide autonomous corrosion protection and prevent undercut adhesion loss when damage occurs. Self-healing additives provide a dynamic functionality to protective coatings by regenerating critical protective properties in the damaged area of the coating.

Presentation

How does it work?

Key benefits

Differentiate your coatings by providing extended lifetime to reduce end-user maintenance cost

Self-healing additives provide key benefits to high-performance smart coatings:


Corrosion protection
Extended coating lifetime and reduced maintenance cost
Improved protection with maintained adhesion
Potential for aesthetic recovery

Improved corrosion protection with self-healing coatings

The Self-healing additives can be compatible with most solventborne, waterborne and powder coatings and impart improved protection to metals, wood, concrete, plastic, composite and other substrates to ensure an additional level of insurance for end-users and asset-owners.

In the example below, the comparison between high-performance epoxy coatings with and without self-healing additives shows that the self-healing coating (5wt% microcapsule add-rate) is able to repair impact damage, prevent corrosion and maintain coating adhesion after damage (note: adhesion evaluated after 1,000 hours of ASTM B117 exposure).


Improved protection with maintained adhesion

A comparison of adhesion loss for a commercialized self-healing powder coating (epoxy primer containing microcapsules with a standard polyester topcoat) relative to a leading standard epoxy primer is shown below, demonstrating a significant life time extension enabled by the incorporation of self-healing additives.




The level of self-healing performance can be tailored to satisfy specific requirements of targeted end-use applications by adjusting the microcapsule add-rate (typically between 1 and 10wt%). Microcapsules are not recommended for addition to fully formulated coatings. Some degree of coating reformulation is typically required, such as proper selection of dispersing aids and adjustments of pigment volume concentration and pigment size distribution. 

Below is an overview of adhesion loss performance as a function of microcapsule concentration in a self-healing epoxy primer with a polyester topcoat on B1000 substrates: 


Extended coating lifetime and reduced maintenance cost

Using self-healing technology enables extended coating lifetime and reduced asset maintenance costs when using high-performance coatings by reducing both frequency and scope of required repair. 


Extra benefit! Less environmental impact due to longer maintenance cycles and fewer repaint events over the lifetime of the asset:

  • Reduced VOC emissions
  • Reduced energy use and carbon footprint
  • Reduced processing and application waste products

Applications

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