Doing more with less: Toward sustainable performance in a world with fewer active ingredients
Dr Jake Jacobs and Dr Jörg Wilken, R & D at Arxada P & C, showcase new products that address active availability challenges
In the late 13th century, fishermen in the Low Countries faced a major preservation problem: their key export, herring, was spoiling before it could reach the shores of trading partners. This changed when Willem Buckels, a simple yet resourceful fisherman, invented‘ gibbing’, an elegant process of gutting and salting herring at sea.
This technique was straightforward but transformative, turning a once perishable commodity into a global staple. Buckels did not have modern tools to solve this problem: no chemical libraries, artificial intelligence( AI) models or advanced scientific understanding. He had only the ancient, simple and powerful human tool of resourcefulness.
Paint challenge
Today, formulators in the paints and coatings space are faced with a similar challenge. A confluence of regional regulatory changes, increased formulation susceptibility due to reduced VOC and rising biobased content, and microbial ecology shifts linked to a consolidation of active ingredients with similar mechanisms of action( MoA), is driving a strong need for higher performance preservation with fewer active ingredients( Figure 1). When these pressures are combined with consumer, societal, and environmental drivers, the need
Figure 1 – Biocide regulatory squeeze & its impact
for new solutions to microbial control has never been greater.
The net result is a preservation challenge unlike anything the sector has faced before: fewer permissible active ingredients with lower inherent efficacy and a higher risk of spoilage by difficult-todetect organisms.
The primary driver of change in this market is regional regulatory pressure from major governing bodies, resulting in increased restrictions and potential bans. Multinationals’ goals for global formulations have led to a consolidation around a limited number of permissible active ingredients.
Recent contributors to this trend include the reduction of isothiazolinone content in the EU, significant limits on sodium pyrithione in Canada, global changes in algaecide and fungicide regulations, and increasingly
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