Environmental care of silicones for release coating technical trend of solventless silicone

Environmental concern decreases consumption of organic solvents as a global trend. Silicones for release coating are also requested to move to solventless type from solvent type. In fact 80% of silicones for release coating application is already solventless type in North America and Europe. On the other hand, solvent type still holds about 75% of release coating application in Japan, since quality requirements of Japanese customers are various and strict. Replacement of solvent type with solventless type largely depends on development of silicone formulation technique in conformity with each customer's specified requirement. In this article our basic concept of release control technique to comply with such customer's requests is described and our solventless silicone product Silcolease is introduced, which RHODIA and ARAKAWA have developed together for Japanese customers. In addition we propose Multi Component System as the most rational method of silicone use for release application.