Specific paint colour, called by different names such as lime green, dark yellow, navy blue, or red rose, can be determined by the combination of different pigments. Many of these colour names have their historical origins. However, due to some bad reasons, including animal mistreatment, dangers to humans and environment, poor lightfastness and other undesired qualities, original raw materials used for producing pigment for industrial coatings are banned. Therefore, over the years stable pigments with similar colour properties were instead use as a replacement while still carrying their original names.
By definition, pigments are coloured powders which are insoluble when simply mixed with liquid. Rather, they have to be liquefied or ground in the binder to be dissolved and mixed. The type of the pigment used determines the properties of the industrial coatings, particularly the following.
- Tinting strength: this is affected by the amount of pigment used and how fine the pigment has been ground. The finer the pigment, the higher is the tinting strength of the coating. The higher the tinting strength, the longer the pigment will be conserved by mixing it with white.
- Lightfastness: it means the ability of the colour to withstand the effects of ultraviolet light which can breakdown the colour purity. How quickly the fading occurs depends on the degree of lightfastness of the pigment. Some can start to fade after several days while others after few years or even stay unfaded.
- Opacity or transparency: this property can only be determined if there’s no opaque extender used for the industrial coatings. The degree and difference in opacity or transparency of colour pigment varies and can be measured through a constant layer thickness.
Indeed, it’s true that colour is the key to distinction and should you want to create countless colour effects for your unique project or usual production, Teff-Line’s industrial coating services will help you achieve it. We closely work with the industry-leading manufacturers to help our customers select the perfect industrial coatings for their projects.