Evonik (Essen, Germany; www.evonik.com) has inaugurated a plant for its innovative dispersion technology for fumed silica at its Rheinfelden site. This strengthens the specialty chemicals company’s position as a leading supplier of high-quality silicas from the AEROSIL® family.
The new system is tailored for the production of AEROSIL Easy-to-Disperse (E2D) products. This technology simplifies the incorporation of silica as a rheology additive into paint and coating formulations.
“The enhancement of the AEROSIL® E2D technology capabilities demonstrates our commitment to the Rheinfelden site, where we have been successfully producing fumed silica for decades,” says Dr. Stefan Fiedler, Head of the AEROSIL operating group in Rheinfelden. “This not only ensures quality, but also increases the global availability of our products.”
AEROSIL® E2D fumed silica products offer excellent dispersibility, which simplifies and increases the efficiency of the paint and coating manufacturing process. Traditionally, the dispersion of rheology additives such as fumed silica has been an energy- and time-intensive process. AEROSIL® E2D technology reduces this step to a single operation.
“Our AEROSIL® E2D products offer our customers improved process efficiency as well as optimized end-product performance,” says Dr. Oliver Kroehl, Head of Silica at Evonik Coating Additives, highlighting the benefits of the technology. “The main benefit for our customers is the accelerated dispersion of the silica, yielding significant savings in time, energy, and costs, and consequently CO2 emissions. This enables our customers to develop more advanced and sustainable coating solutions.”
The enhancement in Rheinfelden is part of Evonik’s continued investment in coating and ink additives, with a particular focus on the development of environmentally friendly and sustainable products.
Evonik’s Coating Additives business line offers a wide range of specialty additives for coatings and printing inks. The business has decades of experience in developing products for a range of coating markets, including decorative coatings, industrial coatings, automotive coatings and printing inks.