David Savastano, Editor11.15.18
Waxes and additives play a key role for market ink formulators. They give inks the characteristics that printers require, from appearance to performance and much more.
It is also a sizable market: According to a study by the consulting firm Kusumgar, Nerlfi & Growney, global consumption of five of the leading coating and ink additives (rheology modifiers, dispersants, foam control, wetting, and slip & rub) was worth $5.12 billion.
Kusumgar, Nerlfi & Growney estimate that 2.53 billion pounds worth of additives were used in 2017, and predict that the market will grow by 4% annually. The consultants add that the five leading additives types make up 2.5% of the world’s volume output of coatings and inks in 2017.
The past year was a challenging one for waxes and additives manufacturers, as raw materials were a serious concern, but leading suppliers reported gains in their respective segments.
“Across all four of our product groups, The Keim Group has seen a predictable increase in demand for micronized waxes, water-based wax dispersions and highly efficient non-wax additives for graphic arts – especially over 2017 levels,” said David Grabacki, president, keim additec surface USA, LLC.
“2018 proved to be a challenging year for the graphic arts market, with continued restructuring and raw materials price fluctuations are driven primarily by regulatory and geopolitical developments,” Shamrock Technologies VP Joon Choo said.
John McAllister, global sales director, Micro Powders, said that the wax additive industry performed well in 2018.
“At Micro Powders, we continue to see growth, not only from our legacy wax additives but our newer composite waxes for more demanding ink and varnish applications,” McAllister said.
Kevin Quinn, product manager, surface modifiers for Lubrizol, noted that natural disasters in the Gulf Coast region in late 2017 and early 2018 impacted the availability of wax additive raw materials.
“As such, the industry continues to experience shortages and allocations of products based on oxidized polyethylene sourced from that region,” Quinn said. “Additionally, raw materials for the production of PTFE lubricants have been restricted due to environmental challenges in the sourcing regions of the world. As a result, the industry is experiencing supply challenges and significant price increases of all grades of PTFE products.”
“Relative to additives, Lubrizol has experienced raw material cost increases as well, and in some cases, shortage of them. Similarly, this has also resulted in supply challenges and price increases of Lubrizol additive technologies,” said Dr. Nima Hakim-Elahi, product manager, dispersants for Lubrizol.
Jerry Trauth, product manager wax, additives/ink applications at Kustom Group, reported that the market performance in 2018 has been similar to recent years with only moderate growth.
“We don’t expect the current graphic arts market to change any time soon and we believe growth must come from within our organization,” Trauth said. “We try to do that by listening to our customers and working harder to create better products and solutions to their current problems.”
These manufacturers anticipate that growth will continue in the coming year. “With our expanded distribution network of new warehouses and growing sales team, we expect 2019 to continue on the growth pattern,” Grabacki said.
“We feel that demand for wax additives in graphic arts will continue to grow at a fair pace, especially in higher performing print applications. As the packaging industry places greater demand on ink performance, so too will the demand for waxes grow,” McAlister said.
“We are optimistic for the coming year,” said Trauth. “Internal process improvement projects, increased lab staffing and additional equipment added over the last couple years will continue to help us respond quickly to customer requirements. We continue to expand our global presence in growth areas such as China, Korea, India, and Europe.”
“We expect continued focus on assisting our customers with reformulation projects to meet new regulatory guidelines and their customers’ needs,” said Choo.
Key Growth Areas for Graphic Arts
The importance of waxes and additives to inks are critical, especially to the growing packaging field.
“Packaging ink growth has been our focus for new product development, especially for the UV and water-based segments,” Choo said. “Shamrock’s Hydrocer, FluoroSPERSE and AquaFLON product lines have been reformulated to be in line with the latest regulatory requirements to enable our customers to incorporate these additives in new formulations.”
“For our unique, custom-engineered Ceronas micronized mju: waxes, the demand was higher particularly for solvent-based ink applications,” Grabacki said. “Our highly-efficient
Silcona pigment dispersant and defoamer additives continued to grow especially for inkjet and high-performance pigments applications. Our well-established Ultralube water-based wax dispersions have continued to add products that help formulators achieve the demands of today’s ever-changing graphic arts market.”
Trauth said LED printing continues to grow rapidly.
“Over the last several years, Kustom has worked with suppliers, ink makers and printers to develop press tested products including photoinitiator blends, vehicles, extenders, OPVs and coatings for offset and flexo LED applications,” he said. “Packaging printing continues to grow, and so does the various requirements needed. Specialty coatings with emphasis on visual and sensory effect products for packaging printing continue to be in high demand for applications on many different substrates. Compliance requirements such as Prop 65, 21CFR, Nestle and Swiss and low migration are also requested. Our Strike-Thru effect product line is also very popular. We are helping our customers grow in these markets by offering new product development and working closely with them every day to supply products that help them meet their requirements.”
McAllister said there’s a lot of market interest in haptics and micro-texture for overprint varnishes.
“Packaging manufacturers seek unique haptics as a way of attracting consumer attention on the retail level,” said McAllister. “The sense of touch is a very powerful selling tool. We see it in everything from consumer packaging to magazine covers. Micro Powders offers the widest range of polypropylene texture additives with our PropylTex series and soft touch polyurethane beads with our MicroTouch series.”
“Two areas that offer growth opportunities for the ink industry are food packaging and digital printing,” said Dr. Hakim-Elahi. “Relative to food packaging, as global regulations increasingly evolve and limit raw materials used for formulation, Lubrizol innovates component technologies to help customers formulate based on globally acceptable raw materials. This offers customers opportunities to explore new products and competitive differentiation. From a digital printing perspective, as industries continue to shift to digital printing, opportunities for ink also continue to evolve.”
Raw Material Pricing and Availability
As was the case throughout the ink industry, supply and cost of key raw materials are a major concern for additives and waxes.
“Due to some of the major wax companies switching their capacities to serve other markets, the availability of certain waxes has become very tight and pricing of those waxes has become very volatile,” Grabacki said. “Thanks to our backward integration, our Ceronas and Euroceras waxes have seen a very high level of interest. Through the manufacture of our own wax, The Keim Group has provided a high level of stability to our customers despite these global challenges, with our ability to supply at top-notch quality. The Keim Group is uniquely positioned in this manner.”
“Short supply and escalating prices of key ingredients for UV and LED photoinitiators has been a big problem,” said Trauth. “Fortunately, working with our suppliers, we have been able to offer alternative liquid P.I. blends too many of our customers having supply issues.”
“Shamrock invested ahead in recycled PTFE feedstocks in anticipation of tightening supply due to the geopolitical challenges to ensure availability and price stability for our customers,” Choo noted.
“We anticipate continued supply and price pressure for PTFE through the end of 2018 and into 2019. Price increases for other raw materials used in wax and additive production will also likely be a challenge,” Quinn added.
For more information on waxes and additives, including recently released products, please see the online version at www.inkworldmagazine.com.
It is also a sizable market: According to a study by the consulting firm Kusumgar, Nerlfi & Growney, global consumption of five of the leading coating and ink additives (rheology modifiers, dispersants, foam control, wetting, and slip & rub) was worth $5.12 billion.
Kusumgar, Nerlfi & Growney estimate that 2.53 billion pounds worth of additives were used in 2017, and predict that the market will grow by 4% annually. The consultants add that the five leading additives types make up 2.5% of the world’s volume output of coatings and inks in 2017.
The past year was a challenging one for waxes and additives manufacturers, as raw materials were a serious concern, but leading suppliers reported gains in their respective segments.
“Across all four of our product groups, The Keim Group has seen a predictable increase in demand for micronized waxes, water-based wax dispersions and highly efficient non-wax additives for graphic arts – especially over 2017 levels,” said David Grabacki, president, keim additec surface USA, LLC.
“2018 proved to be a challenging year for the graphic arts market, with continued restructuring and raw materials price fluctuations are driven primarily by regulatory and geopolitical developments,” Shamrock Technologies VP Joon Choo said.
John McAllister, global sales director, Micro Powders, said that the wax additive industry performed well in 2018.
“At Micro Powders, we continue to see growth, not only from our legacy wax additives but our newer composite waxes for more demanding ink and varnish applications,” McAllister said.
Kevin Quinn, product manager, surface modifiers for Lubrizol, noted that natural disasters in the Gulf Coast region in late 2017 and early 2018 impacted the availability of wax additive raw materials.
“As such, the industry continues to experience shortages and allocations of products based on oxidized polyethylene sourced from that region,” Quinn said. “Additionally, raw materials for the production of PTFE lubricants have been restricted due to environmental challenges in the sourcing regions of the world. As a result, the industry is experiencing supply challenges and significant price increases of all grades of PTFE products.”
“Relative to additives, Lubrizol has experienced raw material cost increases as well, and in some cases, shortage of them. Similarly, this has also resulted in supply challenges and price increases of Lubrizol additive technologies,” said Dr. Nima Hakim-Elahi, product manager, dispersants for Lubrizol.
Jerry Trauth, product manager wax, additives/ink applications at Kustom Group, reported that the market performance in 2018 has been similar to recent years with only moderate growth.
“We don’t expect the current graphic arts market to change any time soon and we believe growth must come from within our organization,” Trauth said. “We try to do that by listening to our customers and working harder to create better products and solutions to their current problems.”
These manufacturers anticipate that growth will continue in the coming year. “With our expanded distribution network of new warehouses and growing sales team, we expect 2019 to continue on the growth pattern,” Grabacki said.
“We feel that demand for wax additives in graphic arts will continue to grow at a fair pace, especially in higher performing print applications. As the packaging industry places greater demand on ink performance, so too will the demand for waxes grow,” McAlister said.
“We are optimistic for the coming year,” said Trauth. “Internal process improvement projects, increased lab staffing and additional equipment added over the last couple years will continue to help us respond quickly to customer requirements. We continue to expand our global presence in growth areas such as China, Korea, India, and Europe.”
“We expect continued focus on assisting our customers with reformulation projects to meet new regulatory guidelines and their customers’ needs,” said Choo.
Key Growth Areas for Graphic Arts
The importance of waxes and additives to inks are critical, especially to the growing packaging field.
“Packaging ink growth has been our focus for new product development, especially for the UV and water-based segments,” Choo said. “Shamrock’s Hydrocer, FluoroSPERSE and AquaFLON product lines have been reformulated to be in line with the latest regulatory requirements to enable our customers to incorporate these additives in new formulations.”
“For our unique, custom-engineered Ceronas micronized mju: waxes, the demand was higher particularly for solvent-based ink applications,” Grabacki said. “Our highly-efficient
Silcona pigment dispersant and defoamer additives continued to grow especially for inkjet and high-performance pigments applications. Our well-established Ultralube water-based wax dispersions have continued to add products that help formulators achieve the demands of today’s ever-changing graphic arts market.”
Trauth said LED printing continues to grow rapidly.
“Over the last several years, Kustom has worked with suppliers, ink makers and printers to develop press tested products including photoinitiator blends, vehicles, extenders, OPVs and coatings for offset and flexo LED applications,” he said. “Packaging printing continues to grow, and so does the various requirements needed. Specialty coatings with emphasis on visual and sensory effect products for packaging printing continue to be in high demand for applications on many different substrates. Compliance requirements such as Prop 65, 21CFR, Nestle and Swiss and low migration are also requested. Our Strike-Thru effect product line is also very popular. We are helping our customers grow in these markets by offering new product development and working closely with them every day to supply products that help them meet their requirements.”
McAllister said there’s a lot of market interest in haptics and micro-texture for overprint varnishes.
“Packaging manufacturers seek unique haptics as a way of attracting consumer attention on the retail level,” said McAllister. “The sense of touch is a very powerful selling tool. We see it in everything from consumer packaging to magazine covers. Micro Powders offers the widest range of polypropylene texture additives with our PropylTex series and soft touch polyurethane beads with our MicroTouch series.”
“Two areas that offer growth opportunities for the ink industry are food packaging and digital printing,” said Dr. Hakim-Elahi. “Relative to food packaging, as global regulations increasingly evolve and limit raw materials used for formulation, Lubrizol innovates component technologies to help customers formulate based on globally acceptable raw materials. This offers customers opportunities to explore new products and competitive differentiation. From a digital printing perspective, as industries continue to shift to digital printing, opportunities for ink also continue to evolve.”
Raw Material Pricing and Availability
As was the case throughout the ink industry, supply and cost of key raw materials are a major concern for additives and waxes.
“Due to some of the major wax companies switching their capacities to serve other markets, the availability of certain waxes has become very tight and pricing of those waxes has become very volatile,” Grabacki said. “Thanks to our backward integration, our Ceronas and Euroceras waxes have seen a very high level of interest. Through the manufacture of our own wax, The Keim Group has provided a high level of stability to our customers despite these global challenges, with our ability to supply at top-notch quality. The Keim Group is uniquely positioned in this manner.”
“Short supply and escalating prices of key ingredients for UV and LED photoinitiators has been a big problem,” said Trauth. “Fortunately, working with our suppliers, we have been able to offer alternative liquid P.I. blends too many of our customers having supply issues.”
“Shamrock invested ahead in recycled PTFE feedstocks in anticipation of tightening supply due to the geopolitical challenges to ensure availability and price stability for our customers,” Choo noted.
“We anticipate continued supply and price pressure for PTFE through the end of 2018 and into 2019. Price increases for other raw materials used in wax and additive production will also likely be a challenge,” Quinn added.
For more information on waxes and additives, including recently released products, please see the online version at www.inkworldmagazine.com.
