PIGMENTS | COLOUR
Colour choice gets AI touch
Above: Growing EV demand is presenting challenges and opportunities for pigment producers
– especially for orange colours used to indicate high voltage parts
heat resistant up to 350°C, non-warping and non-shrinking, non-migrating, and light and weather-fast, making it suitable for outdoor applications. The company says the technology used in the final pigment production step increas- es its dispersibility so it is a good fit for fibres and thin film applications. The pigment is manufactured at Heubach’s new facility in Dahej, India. Heubach says this facility has state-of-the-art wastewater and air emissions treatment, and it is investing in solar energy to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Durable blues The latest pigment introduction from Shepherd Color is cobalt aluminate Blue 20G599, a super red-shade blue with what the company describes as the highest red (a*) value and bluest (-b*) masstone values. According to the company this allows it to provide the maximum chromaticity possible compared to other durable blue pigments when matching colours. The company says the colour “pushes the edge
of the durable colour envelope” due to its high temperature stability and overall inertness. While it is based on its standard cobalt aluminate Pigment Blue 28 chemistry, the new pigment is said to be optimised to attain colour values that this chemistry has not reached before. However, because it is based on the established chemistry of the CI Pigment Blue 28 family, it retains a broad range of regulatory approvals and world-wide registrations including compliance for use in FDA food packaging. The new blue complements the company’s
“YInMn” Blue 10G513 pigment, which has lower overall chromaticity than Blue 20G599 but higher opacity and IR reflectance, according to Mark Ryan, Market and Product Manager at Shepherd Color.
38 COMPOUNDING WORLD | September 2023 �
Engineering plastics company Envalior, which launched in April this year and combines the former DSM Engineering Materials and Lanxess High Performance Materials businesses, is using its patented, artificial intelligence (AI)-based Lucidiris colour formulation technology (originally developed within DSM) to predict colour and mechanical properties of polymer compounds. Some colourants can have a negative effect on mechanical properties but that depends on the loading, according to the company, so having the ability to quantitatively estimate the effect of colour on mechanical properties can be really helpful in product design. “Lucidiris changes our design-build-test-learn development cycle for the customer applica- tions of our materials fundamentally,” says Erwin Houben, R&T Manager Digitization Envalior. Several machine learning models were used to build the Lucidiris tool, starting with curated data that included recipes, LAB colour values, and full reflection spectra. A neural network was used to make a first prediction model of colour and mechanical properties, which appeared to be accurate and fast, Houben reports. The model was then improved using an optimised gaussian process model. “The model is much stronger when used for sequential iterations. The data of every iteration can be added easily and quickly to the model, so it will power up the AI for the next iteration. [The tool] has drastically reduced our lead times to develop coloured compounds with the right mechanical properties,” Houben says. “Characteristics of particle size, hardness, absorption coefficients, and some limited initial experiments will be needed to incorporate [a new or different] pigment in the models. The accuracy of the predictions with new pigments grow with the use in every experiment,” Houben explains. The Lucridis model could potentially be used to formulate compounds with recycled materi- als, but the quality of predictions will depend on the quality of input data. If the quality is suffi- cient, the Lucidiris models could help stepwise to give a prediction of attainable colours or what dilution with virgin material would be needed. �
www.envalior.com
www.compoundingworld.com
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64
