Electrostatic powder coating additives are an important component of electrostatic powder coatings and play an increasingly important role in expanding the application fields of electrostatic powder coatings. The composition of electrostatic powder coating additive enterprises is relatively complex, with small enterprises being the majority. Most of these enterprises are not source production enterprises and do not have synthesis capabilities. They purchase liquid additives to compound into powders.

In addition, there are a small number of imported additives in the electrostatic powder coating market, but due to price factors, they are mainly used in high-end fields; With the expanding influence of electrostatic powder coatings, foreign additive companies are paying more and more attention to the field of electrostatic powder coatings.

In 2016, the sales volume of additives for electrostatic powder coatings was 74900 tons, a year-on-year increase of 3.0%. The average comprehensive selling price of various additives was 27.4 yuan/kg, a year-on-year increase of 9.6%. In the past two years, there have been many new and expanded projects in the field of additives in the industry, but at the same time, some enterprises are facing increasing risks of environmental shutdown or relocation.

At present, solid acrylic resin for electrostatic powder coatings is mainly used for extinction, with epoxy and carboxyl functional groups as the main focus. The research hotspots mainly revolve around extinction efficiency and stability, including adjusting monomer formulations to achieve the desired functionality and glass transition temperature, adjusting processes to obtain suitable molecular weight and distribution, etc. There are three bottleneck factors: (1) lack of basic research on the application of polymerization processes, such as the application research of new controllable polymerization processes and bulk polymerization processes; (2) Lack of equipment systems that are compatible with new polymerization processes, such as high vacuum equipment, online control equipment, efficient mass and heat transfer equipment and control systems for high viscosity substances, etc; (3) Lack of high-quality monomer raw materials, especially special functional monomers such as fluorine and silicon.

Based on the current level of technology and equipment, the most likely breakthrough technology is to use imported special monomers to modify existing products to achieve specific application performance, such as super weather resistance, super hydrophobicity, high toughness, etc. Secondly, in the research of new polymerization processes, it is recommended that production enterprises with a foundation in the industry cooperate with universities, institutes, and equipment enterprises to integrate advantageous resources such as process research, equipment development, and industrialization amplification. The existing theoretical basis of block polymerization, controllable polymerization, ontology polymerization, and other processes should be applied to industrial production to significantly improve product quality and performance, and broaden product application fields.

At present, the process used for the polymerization of solid acrylic resin is mainly free radical solution polymerization, which is relatively stable, has low equipment requirements, and the product quality is also unsatisfactory.

New production processes, including pipeline based free radical polymerization with existing applications, active/controllable radical polymerization with existing theoretical foundations, and highly controllable microreactor polymerization in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, are expected to be applied in the synthesis of solid acrylic resins. In terms of new raw materials and products, there are mainly super weather resistant acrylic resins introduced with fluorine-containing monomers, acrylic resins with comb like molecular structures of large monomers that can provide high content of multifunctional end groups, and high heat resistance and toughness acrylic resins introduced with silicon containing monomers.