Ebook: Fillers for Paints: 3nd Revised Edition

The topic of fillers for use in paints and varnishes is an old one, so one might ask why there has been no comprehensive book on the subject to date. Could it be something to do with the earlier prevailing perception of fillers as cheap materials for bulking up profits? Are fillers even worth writing about? Certainly! The sheer number of mineral end-products, the frequently underestimated effort that goes into their manufacture, the testing done to characterise their diverse properties, their wide-ranging applications – that is an awful lot of information to pack into a single work without diluting its focus. Simply to consider the spectrum of professions involved in producing and using fillers – geologists, mineralogists, mechanical engineers, machine operators, chemists, paint and varnish specialists – highlights the extent of hidden technical activity. Fillers are instrumental in many properties of coating materials and films: their rheology, content of volatile organic compounds, solids content, brightness, opacity, reflectivity, adhesion, anti-corrosion characteristics, mechanical and chemical resistance… the list goes on. The bottom line is, proper use of fillers calls for a great deal of knowledge. The present book sets out to convey that knowledge in a straightforward and understandable manner, without compromising scientific objectivity and rigour. Special attention has been given to clear topical division and structuring, to facilitate finding pertinent information, fast. That having been said, the gamut of available fillers is so vast that there would be insufficient space to cover all the materials out there, some of them quite exotic. Instead, this book concentrates on fillers in regular current use, with numerous figures and tables to illustrate their properties and applications. All the same, this book cannot claim to be exhaustive in scope. Readers wishing to obtain further information and details will be served by the extensive bibliographic references provided. This book is intended for anyone who is in any way professionally involved with fillers used in coating materials. Beginners and students will gain a comprehensive overview of the field, while experienced developers will find practical details of immediate relevance to solving their everyday problems. In 2016 I was notified that also the second edition of “Fillers for Paints” is going to be sold out soon as well. I am more than delighted to learn that also the second edition found so many new readers. The continued interest in my book is also judged by manifold feedbacks which I received since 2006. All of them expressed to me their thanks and congratulations by filling a knowledge gap in raw materials for paints. In particular, I appreciate that the book supports training for all different kind of groups, either in industry or science. The third edition allowed me to place small corrections, update market and filler data and add more sub chapters about new fillers and nevertheless an outlook about the future, for example sustainability and light weight fillers. Detlef Gysau Oftringen/Switzerland, January 2017