Hosted by the CSCT and CPCA, the Windy City Coatings Course takes place May 17-18, 2022, at the Westin Chicago Northwest Hotel in Itasca, Illinois. Coatings professionals of all experience levels are invited to attend this two-day course. Topics covered in the course include resin chemistries, pigments and fillers, additives, and coating applications. With both Introductory and Advanced tracks, coatings chemists and technical sales personnel can customize their course schedules based on individual educational needs. Obtain more details by e-mailing csctchicago@gmail.com or director@chicagopaint.org.

The Colibri® Color Management Suite is an efficient, powerful and easy-to-use software suite that can handle color specification to formulation and beyond. Features include the ability to tailor formulas based on pigment cost or availability, utilization of a single central database that allows users to customize software to best fit business needs, and simplified workflows with pre-defined templates.

Modular Laboratory Applications Emergency Shower Booths are shipped from the factory in modular sections, allowing them to be assembled onsite and to be moved from one site to another as the need arises. Molded of chemical-resistant fiberglass, they are equipped with a pull rod-activated shower and push handle eye/face wash for immediately drenching of personnel. Features include frosted front strip curtains, interior grab bars, raised deck grating, and bottom or rear drain outlet. They are compliant with A.N.S.I. and O.S.H.A. requirements.

Decovery® SP-8310 is a 37% bio-based, breathable, multi-purpose acrylic resin that enables exterior coatings with improved outdoor durability and enhanced bio-based content. Its combination of UV and water resistance with low dirt pick-up gives it excellent long-term outdoor durability. Its broad adhesion profile means it is also suitable for a wider range of substrates and application areas. It also delivers good water vapor permeability and high elongation, enabling long-lasting paint systems with high breathability and elasticity. It offers a carbon footprint reduction of up to 8% compared with non-bio-based water-based alternatives.

A new high-performance structural epoxy adhesive, Belzona 7311 is a cold bonding adhesive specially optimized for structural bonding applications subject to cyclic and repeated load where high mechanical strength, cleavage, shear and fatigue resistance are required. Offering high-performance properties and ease of use, it provides high resistance to cyclic fatigue and peel/cleavage forces, excellent adhesion to metallic substrates, cold-curing, and is solvent free. It is easy-to-mix, can be applied without special tools, and is suitable for dry or wet service between -30 °C (-22 °F) and 60 °C (140 °F).

The Colorant Explorer app is built around a novel color wheel design concept to aid formulators and color specifiers with easier searching of pigment ranges used in colorant chemistries for paints and coatings. Users can scroll through chromatic and neutral color wheels designed to create visualization of pigments within a color space and correlate them to available Chromaflo colorants. An “Explore Products” option provides product data that users can filter through to fine-tune available colorant lines by industry, chemistry and region. It is available for download on iOS and Android devices.

The 72DL PLUS™ ultrasonic thickness gauge delivers precision thickness measurements at high speed in a portable device. With fast scanning, advanced algorithms and Olympus’ lowest-ever minimum thickness capability, the gauge can measure the thickness of very thin layers for challenging applications across industries. Capable of displaying up to six layers at once for multilayer coatings, paint, plastics and other materials, the gauge includes a full-color touch screen and five measurement layouts so thickness changes can be accurately tracked and visualized. Other features include guided workflow and built-in data logging and onboard file management.

The VersaMix model VMC-40 is designed for full vacuum operation and includes a three-wing anchor agitator with Teflon blades scraping the sidewalls and bottom surfaces of the vessel, a high-shear mixer with SLIM-style rotor/stator that draws solids sub-surface for virtually instantaneous wet-out, and a high-speed disperser that continues to apply shear as the batch increases in viscosity. Fine dispersion, deagglomeration, emulsification, temperature control and degassing are all accomplished in a highly repeatable process. The vacuum cover features an explosion-proof tank light, RTD thermoprobe, CIP spray nozzles and a dedicated port for nitrogen purging.