“As the world’s largest and most technologically advanced developer of raw materials for the coatings industry, our primary focus is to enable the coatings innovations of both today and tomorrow,” Fernandez said. “At the same time, we understand that Dow is not the primary driving force behind innovation in this industry. Our customers, who include the premier formulators of architectural and industrial coatings in the world, understand the current and growing demands of the industry. We are here to make sure they have the raw materials and technology support they need to stay ahead of those demands.”
Dow Coating Materials provides a wide range of chemistries and support across many different product lines, including core binder technologies such as latex emulsions (acrylics, vinyl acrylics, styrene acrylics, etc.), epoxies, solution vinyl resins and other polymer technologies. Additionally, the business offers a strong portfolio of rheology modifiers, including HASE, HEUR and cellulosic-based products. In addition, Fernandez said the newly combined business assets of Dow Coating Materials provides customers access to a significantly enhanced business support network, including supply capabilities in every major geography around the globe.
The company also plans to leverage many other product lines within Dow to provide coating formulators with solutions to their product development challenges. These product lines include biocides, acrylic monomers, surfactants, and polyurethanes, to name a few. This access to diverse products, technologies and expertise across diverse coatings applications, Fernandez noted, will enable Dow Coating Materials to aggressively research new solutions and work with customers to identify the technologies they require to meet specific industry needs. Among them: reducing environmental impact; improving environmental durability (e.g. UV stability, corrosion resistance, dirt pickup resistance); reducing application and life-cycle costs; enabling “smart” coating functionality, and many others.
Dow Coating Materials also employs advanced technologies such as high-throughput experimentation (HTE), also know as “combinatorial chemistry.” Specifically, HTE uses advanced computer modeling and robotics to identify promising compounds and material solutions. This integrated set of advanced capabilities in hardware and software allows greater experimental variables to be explored than could be achieved with traditional approaches, thereby enabling faster development and commercialization of new chemistries.
