Dow Coating Materials Supports Turkey's Growth Targets

Turkey's paints and coatings industry represents a genuine success story, comprising one of Europe's largest markets and a driving force for growth in the global market. Generating over an estimated USD 2 billion in added value at 2017 figures, Turkey has secured a strong position in the world's coating markets, alongside its increasing technological infrastructure and production capacity. Dow supplies solutions produced at its manufacturing center in Gebze to both the local market and export-oriented markets, making it an important player in coating materials both domestically and internationally. Export volumes have grown significantly in recent years, with approximately one-third of its Gebze production exported, making it one of Turkey's largest exporters in this field. Dow is focused on product development to respond to trends such as rapid urbanization, rising interest in health and environment, industrial growth, and rapid residential expansion in Turkey. These products gain momentum when combined with increasing demand for quality, environment, and sustainability. Until recently, most paints were solvent-based, containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs). However, today, water-based products account for 80% of global demand in the decorative paint sector. Turkish consumers are increasingly demanding more from paint; this requires construction paint manufacturers to respond to this demand with products that are easier and more efficient to use, resistant to staining, longer-lasting, use fewer natural resources, and improve air quality. However, water-based formulations have not made significant advances only in construction paints. Governments and regulators worldwide, including Turkey, are focused on establishing standards to address environmental issues such as increasing air pollution and other health problems (both indoor and outdoor), as well as energy consumption, solvent use, and volatile organic compound emissions. This is leading to wider adoption of water-based paint technologies in the industrial sector and the development of "smarter" coatings that can provide additional benefits. Dow Coating Materials is at the forefront of this change, developing technologies and innovations such as high-quality pure acrylics designed to help paint and coating manufacturers in Turkey design more sustainable, environmentally-conscious solutions for indoor and outdoor applications. I would like to briefly summarize the latest developments from our company that will support advancing Turkey's coating market further.

Meet Temperature Demands with Rheology Modifiers

Rheology modifiers play an important role in coating performance, and Dow has now developed a new hydrophobically-modified ethylene oxide urethane (HEUR) rheology modifier technology for construction paints that provides consistent application properties across a wide temperature range. Given the wide range of climate conditions that characterize Turkey, this development provides considerable support to formulators. Paints thickened with standard HEURs containing alkyl carbon chains or aromatic, hydrophobic groups may experience decreasing viscosity as temperature increases, leading to poor sagging resistance and poor application properties such as flow and leveling. The new nonionic associative thickeners supplied by Dow contain oligomeric hydrophobic segments that provide a new rheological response as temperature changes: hydrophobicity changes as temperature increases and thickening strength is maintained. The new HEURs are not only designed to change rheological response based on application requirements, but can be used as thickeners alongside standard HEURs to obtain consistent rheological response and application properties even as temperature rises. Formulators and end users can benefit from this advantage provided by optimized performance in many ways, regardless of climate conditions in the final application. This technology also enables extending the painting season for professional users and, if standard paints are used in adverse climate conditions, can be used to minimize recoating requirements.

Improving the Air We Breathe

Health-benefiting paints are clearly aligned with and attracting interest from the healthy lifestyle approach that holds an important place on Turkey's agenda. One example is FORMASHIELD™ Formaldehyde Absorption Technology, developed by Dow to help improve indoor air quality. Strengthening building coatings is an effective application that reduces heating and cooling costs in homes. However, this can produce undesirable results in indoor air quality, including the accumulation of formaldehyde emissions from household furnishings. FORMASHIELD™ technology works by removing carbon and hydrogen from formaldehyde in contact with walls painted with this technology, converting it to water vapor and removing it from indoor air. The breakdown of formaldehyde is irreversible and permanent. Dow not only works with manufacturers to help purify indoor air, but also works with manufacturers using this technology in the form of binders such as PRIMAL™ SF-230 to create functional coatings that provide additional benefits such as low odor, stain resistance, crack bridging, and self-disinfection properties.

Maintaining Color Longer

Construction paints not only provide health or environmental benefits, but also contain advanced properties such as higher durability, dirt resistance, and color retention, particularly in exterior applications. Dow addresses this demand with the "DIRTSHIELD™ Technology Portfolio," which comprises binders that increase dirt-blocking resistance, opacifying polymers, rheology modifiers, dispersants, and biocides. These include self-film-forming binders that contribute to film performance and affect dirt retention; thickeners that can mask roughness of underlying layers; additives that support the distribution of key raw materials designed to minimize dirt pickup; and thickeners with inherent water resistance that reinforce overall durability. Additionally, the latest generation PRIMAL™ TX-100 binder offers exceptional water whitening resistance and can be formulated as stone paint or wall coating. This pure acrylic emulsion offered for first-class exterior wall coatings provides long-term color retention as well as alkali resistance, exceptional mechanical stability, and adhesion strength.

Providing Buildings with a Longer Lifespan

Environmentally-conscious industrial coatings are receiving increasing attention in Turkey, where the demand for achieving environmental targets (particularly low VOC outputs) can be supported by water-based or high-solids systems. At the same time, the increasing infrastructure demand arising from economic growth, coupled with increasing needs for higher-quality construction, is creating demand for coatings with enhanced durability and better corrosion resistance. A groundbreaking development from Dow is PRIMAL™ WDV 2001GS Binder, the base of a new exterior coating designed to protect steel-reinforced concrete from deterioration. The product is designed to reduce carbon dioxide ingress into cracks and prevent the decomposition of brittle concrete with low tensile strength. This product is currently available for sale in Turkey. This product extends the lifespan of structures by reducing the rate of cement carbonation and steel corrosion. Enriched with nano silica, the coating is extremely flexible and elastic while also helping to prevent the initial formation of microcracks. The product, which is based on Dow binders, is a new product designed for large structures such as bridges, subways, and high-rise buildings. Not only does it support a longer lifespan for buildings, but it can also help protect concrete structures from aging effects caused by weather exposure.

Advancing Road Markings

Turkey is one of the leading implementers in removing solvent from road line markings, and in a country where thousands of people lose their lives each year due to traffic accidents, high nighttime visibility road markings play a vital role in increasing safety. Since 2014, Dow has worked alongside the General Directorate of Highways, a subdivision of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, to support the transition to water-based road markings, and this work has made Turkey one of the pioneering countries, following Scandinavia, in eliminating the use of solvent-based road paints. Dow's FASTRACK™ Binder Technology enables the production of water-based road marking systems with low VOC, which are better for the environment and applicators than solvent-based alternatives, and also provide excellent glass bead retention for nighttime visibility. With excellent product dosage and durability balance, FASTRACK™ Binders provide a solution that is thin-layered, solvent-free, with excellent durability coupled with minimum TiO2 use and meets glass bead retention requirements to satisfy required visibility demands. With formulations containing 8 to 10 times less solvent than conventional traffic paint, the carbon footprint of FASTRACK™ binder-based paints is 60% lower than other road marking technologies such as solvent-based acrylics, thermoplastics, and cold plastics, and this is proven in Life Cycle Assessment Studies. FASTRACK™ binder-based paints also offer the potential to reduce VOC emissions by up to 80%. Another example is liquid-applied sound damping (LASD), an incredibly versatile and environmentally-conscious method for reducing vibration and noise in vehicles. ACOUSTICRYL™ specialty water-based acrylic binders were developed by Dow to provide significant advantages compared to conventional methods such as bituminous pads, viscoelastic materials, and polyurethane foams. Containing high energy absorption with acrylic chemistry, low-odor, solvent-free ACOUSTICRYL™ resins deliver improved sound damping performance at 35% lower weight compared to alternatives, enabling low fuel consumption when used in vehicles.

Strong Performance for Demanding Environments

In conventional metal coatings, solvent-based and alkyd coatings are the main source of VOC emissions; that is, applications such as shipping container paints can have significant environmental impacts. While formulation requirements differ from solvent-based ones, water-based alternatives can achieve equal performance with dry films and, contrary to some assumptions, dry quickly and provide efficiency savings. For example, MAINCOTE™ acrylic resins based on Dow's AVANSE™ technology provide a water-based alternative to solvent-based alkyds and two-component coatings and offer corrosion-resistant primers, high-durability topcoats, and high-gloss, direct-to-metal application with excellent UV resistance and corrosion protection in a low-VOC format.

Lasting Beauty of Wood Indoors and Outdoors

Coatings must be aesthetic and demonstrate durability. With a newly-painted appearance and surface durability, along with a binder portfolio working with rheology modifiers specially designed for tasks such as floor coatings and fence coatings, Dow provides a palette of raw materials offering one-stop service to exterior wood and composite paint formulators. This range includes pure acrylic PRIMAL™ binders designed to deliver everything from superior dirt-removal resistance to controlled erosion on composite floors. Additionally, there have been significant recent advances in gloss coating paints for interior and exterior wood. PRIMAL™ HG-415 binder, produced by Dow in Turkey, is an APEO-free acrylic binder for gloss paints with good applicability, flow, leveling, and improved open time. This technology uses ambient temperature cross-linking to provide improved film performance compared to conventional polymers. Gloss paints formulated with PRIMAL™ HG-415 are oxidatively cured during and after the coalescence of latex particles; this allows the binder to develop truly improved early film properties during its cure process to create a film with improved toughness and resistance properties. Turkey demands much from paint and coating manufacturers who must meet quality and performance requirements in international markets. With the power of a technology set designed to help increase the long-term sustainability of value chains and provide paint and coating designers with competitive advantage, Dow works with innovative raw materials to enable its customers to meet this demand not only today, but in the future. Cemal Drahor Chief Executive Officer and Board Member, Rohm&Haas JV Regional Sales Leader, North/West Africa, Turkey, Poland, Hungary Dow Coating Materials