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 polymer 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 dispersions 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 volatile organic compounds, 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.

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.

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 emissions.

However, they have a significant drawback. They shrink during manufacture, resulting in deformed components and irregular surfaces. Adding VINNAPAS^® 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.