Smart Binders – Convenient, Safer, More Sustainable in Everyday Use

This carpet does not smell. At any rate not like a new carpet straight from the factory. The reason for the different odor is the binder in the carpet backing. When new customers visit Dominique Nely in Burghausen, she is only too pleased to demonstrate this using a carpet strip coated with VAE polymer dispersion from WACKER, and is delighted to see their astonished faces.

In the USA, the biggest carpet market in the world, VAE have already triumphed over rival materials. In the last three years alone, WACKER has significantly boosted its sales among the leading US carpet manufacturers. Compared to their rivals, WACKER binders offer a range of advantages: their price fluctuates less, they hardly emit any , they are flame-resistant, easy to process – and practically odor-free.

Meeting High Standards

Rising affluence is driving the demand for products that make people’s daily lives more convenient, safe and sustainable. Dominique Nely can list a whole range of examples where WACKER binders make a significant contribution to meeting precisely these customer needs.

“We have only just begun to tap the application potential of smart binders.”

Dominique Nely is responsible for binders for consumer goods and industrial applications in Western Europe.

The healthcare and food industries have particularly high standards. Tablet blisters are an extremely sensitive product. The tablets must be hermetically packaged to keep out microorganisms or humidity. Polymer binders from WACKER firmly bond the aluminum foil and polymer to one another, while still allowing the package to be easily opened. This principle is also used for sensitive foods. The aluminum foil lid on the yogurt tub is coated with VINNOL® binder, which maintains a seal between the tub and aluminum lid while ensuring the yogurt does not come into contact with the aluminum. The same applies to processed cheese packaging, where the binder ensures that the thin aluminum foil can be sealed at low temperatures and pressures, and that the cheese does not melt while still on the packaging line.

With VINNOL® solid resins, blister packs remain airtight and sterile (photo)

With VINNOL® solid resins, blister packs remain airtight and sterile.

Perfect Surfaces for Households and Industry

Whether on walls, floors or terraces – marks and dirt are unwelcome. The market for dirt-repellent surfaces is growing by over 6 percent a year on average. Dominique Nely and her team have developed special dispersions that protect walls and concrete floors against a variety of stains. “From coffee and red wine to colored pencils – the marks can be easily wiped off,” she says. Her tests in the dispersions lab in Burghausen are an impressive confirmation of that. She scribbles with lipstick on a freshly painted wall, and then wipes a wet cloth with detergent over the white surface until you might imagine that the plaster would show through. The coat of paint, containing a newly developed specialty dispersion, is not wiped away – but the lipstick has gone completely.

These dispersions can also be used to impregnate terrace paving or concrete flooring. Once applied, they protect against rust or are absorbed into the pores so effectively that the floors can even be cleaned with a high-pressure washer.

Dominique Nely, head of binders business for consumer goods and industrial applications (photo)

Dominique Nely, head of binders business for consumer goods and industrial applications

The tensile test measures the wear resistance of carpets (photo)

The tensile test measures the wear resistance of carpets.

Dispersion reactor at WACKER’s Burghausen site (photo)

Dispersion reactor at WACKER’s Burghausen site

The market for dirt-repellent surfaces is growing by over 6 percent annually.

Perfect surfaces are required not only in homes, but also in industry. The car paintwork only gets a high-gloss finish if the body parts are extremely smooth and level. Car bodies contain several square meters of fiber-reinforced plastics. These lightweight components improve fuel consumption and reduce CO2 .

However, they have a significant drawback. They shrink during manufacture, resulting in deformed components and irregular surfaces. Adding solid resins reduces shrinkage to a trifling 0.05 percent. This produces extremely smooth, glossy and homogeneous surfaces that are not only easy to process, but are also ideal for painting.

Testing the abrasion resistance of dispersion paints (photo)

Testing the abrasion resistance of dispersion paints

Polymer
A polymer is a large molecule made up of smaller molecular units (monomers). It contains between 10,000 and 100,000 monomers. Polymers can be long or ball-shaped.
Dispersions
Binary system in which one component is finely dispersed in another. VINNAPAS® dispersions are vinyl-acetate-based copolymers and terpolymers in liquid form. They are mainly used as binders in the construction industry, e. g. for grouts, plasters and primers.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are gaseous and vaporous substances of organic origin that are present in the air. They include hydrocarbons, alcohols, aldehydes and organic acids. Solvents, liquid fuels and synthetic substances can be VOCs, and so can organic compounds originating from biological processes. High VOC concentrations can be irritating to the eyes, nose and throat and may cause headaches, dizziness and tiredness.
Emission
Substance outputs, noise, vibrations, light, heat or radiation emitted into the environment by an industrial plant.
VINNAPAS®
VINNAPAS® is WACKER’s brand name for dispersions, dispersible polymer powders, solid resins and their associated product solutions. VINNAPAS® dispersions and polymer powders are primarily used in the construction industry as polymeric binders, e.g. in tile adhesives, exterior insulation and finish systems (EIFS)/external thermal insulation composite systems (ETICS), self-leveling compounds, and plasters.