AsianPPG wins three awards from Indian Paint Association

AsianPPG Industries Ltd. – a joint venture of PPG Industries, the world’s second-largest manufacturer of paints and coatings, and Asian Paints (India) Ltd. – won three 2009 Indian Paint Association Awards at the 24th Indian Paint Conference, held here Feb. 6-8, for research papers written by the AsianPPG technical team. The recognition, awarded by the Indian Paint Association biannually at the conference, aims to promote research and innovation in the paint industry in India.

The first winner was a research paper entitled “Use of Taguchi Screening Techniques for Gloss Optimization of Appliance Powder Coatings” by Amit Amembal, technical executive. The paper describes a research study using the Taguchi experimental design to understand factors responsible for gloss levels in powder coatings, which have led to powder’s widespread application for high-aspect finishes compared with liquid coatings. Powder coatings, considered the best available control technology for environmental and ecological balance and control in the paint and coatings industry, is one of AsianPPG’s core businesses.

Two other papers – “Modeling of Molecular Weight of Acrylic Resins Using Full Factorial Techniques,” coauthored by Nishant Prabhu, technical manager, and Deepak Shanbhag, senior technical officer, and “Self-Polishing Coatings,” by Santosh Shatpalkar, technical officer – won the second and third awards in the research and review categories respectively. Prabhu and Shanbhag presented their attempts to formulate a mathematical equation to predict the molecular weight of the resin in a coating, an important property determining the coating’s performance, based on the initiator half-life at processing temperature, initiator concentration and monomer feed-time. Shatpalkar’s paper is a general review of self-polishing technology, which involves a combination of biocides with a basic resin in marine paints to help control the solubility of harmful substances in water and maintain the desired appearance and smoothness on a ship’s hull.

“We are pleased to receive three of the total six IPA Awards granted in 2009,” said Jean-Louis Djakovitch, senior general manager, AsianPPG. “These environmentally-responsible technologies help our company to be at the forefront of innovation and to better serve our automobile manufacturing customers in India and other areas in the Asia/Pacific region.”

AsianPPG Industries Ltd., a joint venture of Asian Paints (India) Ltd. and PPG Industries Inc., was established in February 1997 to provide paint solutions for Indian automobile manufacturers. The joint venture brings together the partners’ strengths in technology, manufacturing and customer insight. For more information, visit