MÜNZING CHEMIE laboratory and Technical Service Request (TSR)

Solve your additive problem with our help

Altering the additives in a coating or ink formulation can be a daunting task. There are a number of aspects to tune with additives: rheology, substrate wetting, pigment dispersion, levelling, water resistance and defoaming. Attaining the right surface properties with a wax, such as burnish resistance or slip, can also be challenging. Selecting an additive that works first time is quite unlikely, resulting in the formulator taking on many samples and running long, potentially costly, screening processes. It is fair to say that most formulation chemists have first-hand experience of an additive solving one problem and then creating two, three or four more! Thus getting the right additive for a given problem is not always the end of the story. A common example of this is finding a defoamer that eradicates foaming, but leaves craters on the surface.

MÜNZING CHEMIE are a multi-national chemical company specialising in the production of chemical additives and waxes for the coating, ink and dispersion markets. Since moving to their new state-of-the-art facility in Abstatt (Germany) they have substantially increased the in-house laboratory facilities.

MÜNZING CHEMIE, through partnership with Lawrence Industries, are able to offer customers a Technical Support Request (TSR) service. This service supports the customer in the selection of the correct MÜNZING CHEMIE additive or wax, to solve a specific problem in a specific formulation. Initially a short amount of paperwork is completed which details the project, its purpose and the desired outcome. This will take into account chemical and legislative restrictions, the capabilities of your laboratory and production facilities, as well as commercial factors. There is no point in testing and selecting a high cost additive for a price-sensitive formulation. 

A proposed test method will then be submitted to the customer before formulation samples are sent and the work is carried out. We want to ensure that any tests carried out by MÜNZING CHEMIE can be replicated by the customer, facilitating an easy and reliable approval process in the formulation. MÜNZING CHEMIE can utilise a wide range of formulation and dispersion equipment to closely mimic the systems in the customers’ laboratory, allowing for a simple process of transferring technology back. 

In order to select the right solution, MÜNZING CHEMIE have an extensive array of equipment and standard test methods at their disposal. These include, but are not limited to:

• Red Devil – A standard test to measure air incorporation into coatings. 

• Dissolver – Particularly useful to measure the formation of foam in low-viscosity products. 

• Levelling – In the levelling test, the surface of the coating will be analysed after draw down and graded with comments on the types of defects seen. Surface aspects of a coating are vital, whether it be for functional or aesthetic reasons.  

• Scratch Resistance – If you have a wax project then it is likely that scratch and abrasion resistance is a vital part of the formulations performance. MÜNZING CHEMIE can test a range of methods related to scratch resistance such as sheen hardness, mar resistance and fingernail marking. 

• Abrasion Resistance – Abrasion resistance of printing inks can be assessed with scrub cycles, performed on a Quartant rub tester.

If you have an upcoming or ongoing additive project - for either a new formulation or a problematic one, then get in contact to see if a MÜNZING CHEMIE TSR is the right option for you.