Neuburg Siliceous Earth in road marking paints

When creating high-quality road marking paints, developers are faced with many challenges such as local legislations, environmental restrictions, and climatic conditions.

Road marking paints can basically be subdivided into the following categories:

• Solvent-based systems
• Water-based systems
• Thermoplastic systems

Nowadays, water-based road marking paints are the most commonly used, due largely to the worldwide initiatives to reduce VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Thermoplastic formulations are predominant in South East Asia because products for that region have to withstand harsh climatic conditions. Our supply partner Hoffmann Mineral presents a study dealing with precisely these two different systems. 
In most cases, both types of road marking paint contain calcium carbonate as the filler due to its high availability and low cost; yet this filler can also have negative effects on the end product. Besides low mineral hardness, calcium carbonate also has limited chemical stability. Furthermore, CaCO₃ tends to absorb large amounts of water.
The addition of Neuburg Siliceous Earth (NSE) can compensate for these negative aspects of calcium carbonate while also reducing costs and improving the performance of the formulation.

Sillitin N 82 has the advantage of excellent dispersibility and a natural yellow coloration, which reduces the use of expensive pigments. 
Silfit Z 91 is a calcined variant that provides a very high degree of whiteness, making this product a good TiO₂ extender.
As further advantages, these functional fillers stand out for low water absorption, excellent chemical stability, and increased hardness and abrasion resistance of the final product.

More details on test formulation and parameters as well as test results can be found in the linked report from Hoffmann Mineral.