Paints and Coatings
SIC 2851
NAICS 325510
The global paint industry produces paints and coatings for architectural (known in Europe as decorative), marine, packaging, transportation equipment, and many additional end uses. Industry products also include varnishes, lacquers, enamels, and shellac, as well as chemical paint removers and brush cleaners. Makers of pigments alone are discussed in Chemicals, Industrial Inorganic and Chemicals, Industrial Organic based on the specific pigment's chemical composition.
The paint industry has been a relatively small but rapidly growing segment of the broader chemical industry. Environmental pressures and regulations have been some of the biggest challenges faced by the industry. Skyrocketing prices of basic raw materials have also been a perennial concern, although by the late 1990s prices had stabilized somewhat. To counter increasing prices, paint manufacturers and suppliers worked together to formulate improved paints to justify price premiums. A simultaneous challenge for the industry was to incorporate the use of environmentally friendly materials and abide by the regulations and pressures on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). Coatings in general were moving away from being solvent-based toward being water-based as of the mid-2000s.
Following the worldwide slump of manufacturing industries during the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, the paints and coatings industry showed overall improvement by 2005, particularly in the architectural/decorative coatings segment, which grew 11 percent in value for U.S. manufacturers. Special purpose coatings declined slightly. While the product OEM (original equipment manufacturer) coatings segment improved worldwide, due in part to increased manufacturing in Asia and South America, the U.S. segment declined 13 percent in value.
Measured by consumption, North America and Asia are the world's largest paint markets, each consuming about 29 percent of world production. These regions are trailed by Western Europe at 22 percent, and other regions consume the remaining 19 percent. China showed the biggest growth in annual consumption from 1997 to 2002, with a 6.4 percent rise.
In 2004, the top ten paint and coatings manufacturers worldwide, as ranked by Coatings World, were Akzo Nobel Coatings NV, PPG Industries Inc., ICI Paints, Henkel, Sherwin-Williams Company, DuPont Coatings & BASF Coatings AG, Valspar Corp., RPM, and SigmaKalon Group BV. The top ten manufacturers in the United States were Akzo Nobel Coatings Inc., Sherwin-Williams Company, PPG Industries Inc., DuPont Coatings & Color Technologies, ICI Paints North America, BASF Coatings AG, Valspar Corp., RPM Inc., Sigma-Kalon Group BV, and Nippon Paint.
Paints and coatings fall into three broad categories: architectural paints, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) paints, and special purpose coatings. Specialized paints such as skid-resistant paint, heat-reflective paints, heat-absorbent paints, phosphorescent paints, fluorescent coatings, electrically conductive/non-conductive paints, and temperature sensitive paints were used for a variety of purposes, especially in industry.
These paints are used for decorating and protecting homes, apartments, farm buildings, office buildings, and other commercial structures. Architectural paints include both solvent and water-based paints for interior and exterior surfaces. In industrial economies, such as those of Japan and Western Europe, architectural coatings are considered a mature market, with long-term growth projected at about 1 to 2 percent per year.
OEM coatings, also known as industrial or product finishes, are mostly used to protect and decorate durable and industrial goods. This group of paints is typically sold by paint companies to various equipment manufacturers who apply the paints to their particular products, such as automobiles, trucks, aircraft, railroad equipment, home appliances, office machines, furnaces, and air-conditioning equipment.
Many of the latest paint technologies were developed for the OEM segment, where there was a growing focus on increasing the efficiency of application methods and reducing volatile solvents content to meet strict environmental regulations. A major challenge facing manufacturers of OEM coatings was the increased use of plastics in automobiles and other durable goods. The need for OEMs to match the paint finish of steel body panels with plastic body panels that are painted separately was yet to be satisfied.
This category includes paint products generally used for maintenance work and as coatings for the transportation aftermarket. They are designed for special applications and for withstanding unusual environmental conditions. Special purpose coatings are used widely in high specialty applications. These products include anti-corrosive paints, traffic and marine paints, weather resistant paints, spray paints in aerosol containers, and chemical resistant paints.
Some of the earliest examples of painting occurred thousands of years ago, when Paleolithic artists devised elaborate cave paintings in blacks, yellows, reds, and whites at Lascaux, France. These early paints came from such substances as charcoal, iron oxide, clay, and calcite. Paints in the modern sense came into being when the early artists discovered that colors could be applied much better when the pigments were mixed with binders such as egg whites, beeswax, gum arabic, and pitches and balsams from trees. Some of the main ingredients used in paints were pigments, binders, volatile solvents and additives.
Pigments are materials that impart color and opacity to a paint film. White lead was the most important pigment used in paint from the end of the seventeenth century until early in the twentieth century, when titanium dioxide was introduced. Other pigments became popular in the mid-nineteenth century and led to the formation of multi-pigment paints.
Binder is the portion of the paint that holds the other ingredients together and serves to form the solid film of paint. Around the sixth century A.D., oils obtained from vegetable seeds and nuts began to be used as paint binders. Alkyd resins began to be used as paint binders around 1927. The excellent properties and great versatility of alkyd resins made their discovery and development one of the most important in modern paint technology. Numerous other resins and polymers were developed for highly specialized industrial and maintenance uses.
Volatile solvents or thinners are used in paints to facilitate their application. Turpentine was the first recorded thinner used in paint. Used by ancient Egyptians, it was the most widely used paint thinner until the middle of the twentieth century when it was largely displaced by cheaper petroleum-based solvents, first used in the 1860s. With the increased use of latex paints and other water-borne coatings, water was also widely used as a solvent.
Additives are used in paints and coatings to perform specific functions not accomplished by the three major ingredients. Additives facilitate the performance of a variety of special functions, such as drying or hardening of paints, dispersing of pigment, preventing uneven color patterns, preventing pigment from settling, and resisting mildew growth on surfaces.
A rudimentary chemical industry is said to have begun in the early seventeenth century with the production of wood tar, used as pitch for the bottom of ships, and potash, used for making soap. The spread of industrialization outside of Europe and the United States and the First and Second World Wars acted as catalysts for the chemical industry.
Industrial growth in the United States increased civilian demand for chemicals, especially those used in bleaching and dyeing textiles. In 1867, D.R. Averill, an Ohioan, patented ready-to-use paint. It was not until the 1880s that quality ready-mixed paints were produced. During both World Wars, paint and varnish were vital to the U.S. military effort for protection and camouflage of equipment and personnel. The unique needs of the military compelled the development of specialized paints and coatings.
Time-tested technologies and processes are utilized for the production of conventional paints. Mixing of primary materials followed by blending, testing, and filling operations compose the production process. Unlike many basic and intermediate chemicals, paints and coatings are sold under a brand name. Research and development and technological advances occur quite rapidly in a consumer environment and this has been the case in the paints and coatings industry.
The maturity of the paint business and increased technology requirements resulted in an extended period of industry consolidation. The growing burden of complying with government...
To continue reading
Request your trial