DOWSIL™ 3 Additive

Cost-effectively prevent flooding and floating in white, gray and pastel formulations with an innovative silicone dispersant additive from Dow

Compatibility of pigments in solvent-based paints can be an issue to the formulator. TiO2 and colored pigments can separate in-can, leading to pigment floating. The concentration and separation of pigments on drying also can result in inconsistent color performance on application. Are these two attributes important to you?

Then consider DOWSIL™ 3 Additive. At very low concentrations, this silanol functional silicone resin effectively prevents the flooding and floating of solvent based formulations, particularly for whites (titanium dioxide based), grays and pastel shades with a good cost-in-use compared to competitor products. Targeted applications and markets for DOWSIL™ 3 Additive include producers of wood coatings, protective coatings, industrial coatings, automotive OEM and refinish paints, printing inks, and pigment pastes.

Effective prevention of flooding and floating

DOWSIL™ 3 Additive is most effectively used in the grind phase when dispersing TiO2 in white base paints. A silanol functional silicone resin, DOWSIL™ 3 Additive offers an alternative chemistry to market for dispersant technology and has been shown to be highly effective versus existing market solutions.

Figure 1: Floating (in-can observation) and flooding (rub-out results) with DOWSIL™ 3 Additive versus competitor dispersants in a solvent based 2K PU gray wood coating. All additives added during grinding of base white coating.

^{Competitor 1: 50 percent actives modified polyurethane; Competitor 2: 50 percent actives unsaturated polycarboxylic acid polymer + polysiloxane copolymer; (ΔE): the color difference between the rubbed and unrubbed surfaces of a freshly applied film on a LENETA chart.}

Excellent efficiency for low cost-in-use 

The unique chemistry of DOWSIL™ 3 Additive also enables it to be highly effective at very low dosage levels. In fact, DOWSIL™ 3 Additive performs more effectively at preventing flooding and floating than competitive materials at less than half the addition level.

Figure 2: Floating (in-can observation) and flooding (rub-out results) in a solvent based 2K PU gray wood coating. DOWSIL™ 3 Additive is compared to competitor dispersants at lower addition levels in grind.

The recommended dosage of DOWSIL™ 3 Additive is 2-10 weight percent of the titanium dioxide used when dispersing TiO₂ in white base paints (or 0.2-1 weight percent of a total formulation containing 10 percent TiO₂). Concentrations ranging from .05-0.5 weight percent based on the total formulation are effective when DOWSIL™ 3 Additive is used in the “co-grind” of titanium dioxide.

Flexibility with post-addition performance

Although most effective in the grind stage, DOWSIL™ 3 Additive also can be post-added at levels as low as 0.03 percent by weight in the total formulation to improve flooding and floating beyond traditional dispersants on the market today.

Figure 3: Floating (in-can observation) and flooding (rub-out results) in a solvent based 2K PU gray wood coating. Improvements are demonstrated by post-adding DOWSIL™ 3 Additive and Competitor 2 at the addition levels indicated.