At present, raw materials have soared, environmental supervision has intensified, and small and medium-sized enterprises have been marginalized and homogenized China's coating industry seems to be facing a major reshuffle, transformation and upgrading has been the general trend of industry development.

The coating industry presents two major development trends
at present, the world coating variety structure is developing towards the direction of reducing VOC, among which water-based coating is one of the development directions. It has been 20 years since waterborne coatings entered the Chinese market in 1996. Because it represents environmental protection, safety and health, it has become a hot spot in the coating industry. Some reports predict that the water-based environmental protection coatings will achieve rapid growth after breaking through the key technologies, and the water-based coatings will account for more than 50% of the domestic industrial market in the next 5 to 8 years. In addition, functionalization is also a major development direction of coatings industry. Functional decorative coatings not only have the decorative functions of ordinary decorative coatings, but also give coatings some special functions. Waterborne and functional coatings industry has become the two major trends.

What are the non-metallic mineral functional materials for waterborne coatings?

1. Zeolite
Zeolite is the general name of zeolite group minerals, which is a kind of framework water bearing alkaline earth metal aluminosilicate minerals. Zeolite has unique physical and chemical properties due to its unique structure, such as ion exchange, adsorption separation, catalysis, chemical stability, reversible dehydration, conductivity and so on. Zeolite is mainly used as antibacterial coating in waterborne functional coatings. Due to the special microporous structure of zeolite and the selective combination of metal ions with framework, the metal ions with antibacterial effect can be released slowly at a certain rate after coating, so that the coating has long-term antibacterial effect. The antibacterial agent prepared with zeolite carrier has the characteristics of broad-spectrum, lasting, safe and good stability. It provides high-quality and economic raw materials for batch production of antibacterial coatings and promotes the development of antibacterial mineral research industry.

2. Tourmaline
Tourmaline is a kind of silicate mineral with ring structure of aluminum, sodium, iron and lithium, which is characterized by boron. Tourmaline has unique physical and chemical properties such as piezoelectricity and thermoelectricity, so it has far-infrared electromagnetic radiation, negative ion generation, antibacterial, deodorization and other functions. Commonly used in antibacterial coatings or coating materials. 3. Montmorillonite
Montmorillonite is a layered mineral composed of extremely fine hydrous aluminosilicate, which has high ion exchange capacity and high water swelling capacity. Montmorillonite can be used as a film-forming layer and pigment shielding agent with poor heat resistance in waterborne coatings. It has been well used in the formulation of weather resistant exterior wall coatings. Montmorillonite as a carrier has good antibacterial effect and can also be used to prepare antibacterial coatings.

4. Vermiculite
vermiculite is a layered hydroaluminosilicate secondary metamorphic mineral containing magnesium, which has the characteristics of heat insulation, frost resistance, antibacterial, fire prevention, water absorption and sound absorption. When heavy metal ions such as Cu2 +, Zn2 +, ag2 +, Cd2 +, Hg2 + are exchanged with vermiculite interlayer ion, the antibacterial vermiculite with slow-release effect is also formed. Because the interlayer charge of vermiculite is higher than that of montmorillonite, the antibacterial vermiculite prepared by vermiculite has the characteristics of broad antibacterial range, long-lasting effect, good color stability, non-toxic and non irritating, low cost and so on.

5. Mica
Mica belongs to aluminosilicate minerals with continuous layered silica tetrahedral structure. In the water-based coatings, the wet ground ultra-fine mica powder below 325 mesh is mainly used. The dispersion, water resistance, elasticity, plasticity, adhesion and corrosion resistance of the coating can be increased by adding ultrafine mica powder into the coating. Natural mica mineral powder plays an increasingly important role in the product structure adjustment of China's coating industry.

6. Bentonite
Bentonite is a kind of clay rock with montmorillonite as the main mineral component, which often contains a small amount of illite, kaolinite, zeolite and other minerals. After adsorbing water, the volume of bentonite can be increased to several to ten times of the original volume, and the charged particles can be released in the water system, which makes the particles of coating produce electrostatic repulsion, so it has significant thickening and suspension effect, and has become a common thickening and suspension agent in coatings.

Summary
In the past decade, the development of mineral functional materials industry has been attached great importance, and non-metallic mining industry has played an increasingly important role in the national economic and social development. The development of waterborne functional mineral coatings will also drive the development and technological progress of non-metallic mineral powder materials industry. At the same time, high-quality products respond to the higher demand of consumers for the function of coating products. The functional coatings prepared by mineral powder materials have better market capacity and development space.
source website: China powder website