DOWSIL™ 205SL Additive

Dow introduces an innovative family of silicone slip and leveling agents for solventborne, waterborne and radiation curable wood, furniture and plastic coatings, inks and overprint varnishes:

• DOWSIL™ 205SL Additive
• DOWSIL™ 204SL Additive
• DOWSIL™ 401LS Additive

Are you looking to differentiate your formulations by offering systems that provide a pleasing hand feel and improved flow and leveling performance, but can’t find additives that don’t affect recoatability or foam stabilization? Do you have a wide range of resin systems targeting many different applications and are having difficulty finding just the right additive for each system?

Dow innovative family of slip and leveling agents allows you to identify tailored solutions and fine-tune your solventborne, waterborne and radiation curable coating, ink and OPV formulations for optimum performance on wood, furniture and plastic substrates.

DOWSIL™ 205SL Additive is a high-performance product that gives excellent hand feel in multiple coating formulations at low addition levels. This additive also functions as an antifoam, bringing both enabling and problem-solving benefits to the formulator and reducing the amount of additives required in the formulation.

Effective at low concentrations, DOWSIL™ 205SL Additive is recommended to use at approximately 0.2% as supplied based on the total formulation. As low viscosity liquid, it can be added and incorporated easily during the letdown stage of the process.

Figure 1: DOWSIL™ 205SL Additive brings foam control in multiple delivery systems, allowing formulators to simplify their formulations and reduce the number of raw materials in their portfolio. Additives were added at 0.2 weight % in the total formulation. Foam control was assessed by measuring foam height after stirring at 5,000 rpm for 1 min.

Figure 2: Dynamic coefficient of friction, leveling and recoatability of a solventborne, 2K PU wood coating containing various DOWSIL™ additives versus competitor additives. Additives were added at 0.2% by weight in the total formulation.

Key Features of Specific Slip and Leveling Additives

• DOWSIL™ 205SL Additive is a multipurpose silicone additive offering top performance in leveling, slip and hand feel, combined with excellent defoaming properties. 
• DOWSIL™ 204SL Additive provides excellent slip, superior hand feel, better recoatability and improved clarity with comparable leveling speed, particularly for radiation curable formulations. 
• DOWSIL™ 401LS Additive provides excellent wetting and leveling in solventborne formulations at use levels as low as 0.075% and without affecting clarity or recoatability. 
• DOWSIL™ 57 Additive and DOWSIL™ 402LS Additive complete the family of additives. Both are standard DOWSIL™ products for leveling.

While each individual product has primary properties that deliver key performance benefits in a formulation, the final choice of additive should also depend on its secondary attributes. Together these characteristics will reflect the exact combination of properties required for a given application.

Figure 3: Primary and secondary benefits of DOWSIL™ Slip and Leveling Additives