Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us. The views, opinions, and technical analysis presented during this webinar are those of Evonik Corporation and are not solely those of UL. The appearance of this content on UL sites does not constitute an endorsement by UL or its affiliates. Today's webinar is Ancamide 2853 and 2865, flexible, powerful, and resilient. You may even find it unbreakable, and it's presented by Evonik. Your presenter today is Dr. Shiying Zheng, Applied Technology Director for Civil Engineering for Crosslinkers at Evonik Corporation. My name is Derek Boettcher with UL, and I'll be moderating today's webinar. Please send us your questions by typing them in the question box located on your screen. We're recording today's event, and we'll send you a link by email once it's posted to ulprospector.com. Now I'd like to hand it over to Dr. Shiying. Are you ready to begin? Yes. Hi, good morning or good evening, good afternoon, wherever region you are in. Thank you for joining this webinar. Today I'm presenting Evonik's newly developed flexible and tough epoxy curing agent, Ancamide 2853 and 2865. The agenda for today's presentation: first I'll give you some background and quick introduction, followed by market trends and drivers, and how Ancamide 2853 and 2865 address unmet market needs. You'll see the bulk of the presentation will focus on the test results and data, and I'll give a regulatory status of these two products and their EHS profile, followed by a quick summary. We are talking about flexible systems. Why do we need flexible systems? How are they used, and where are they used? Flexible systems, not just epoxy, although that's the main focus today. Flexible systems have very diverse applications. Here I want to give you a few examples. Some of these are like we have seen every day, but you might not kind of pay attention to. For example, like a concrete protection. Where coatings are subject to moderate to heavy duty service, and also involves like a frequent movement and stress. These for concrete protection, the flexibility requirement, it's pretty wide range. It's anywhere from 30% to over 100% elongation. A few of the examples of these for concrete protection, waterproof membrane, crack bridging, and joint cements. You can see like a lot of them require pretty good elongation, over 100%. For metal protection, tank linings, industrial or flexible coatings are just one of the two examples. Flexible systems can also be used as adhesive for adhesive applications. What are the typical technologies, like flexible technologies? And then, what are the requirements? So, in this table, I list the properties of these flexible systems. You can see that it involves handling property, like EHS profile, like regulations and handling. And a lot of it's focused on performance, such as accuracy, low temperature cure. And obviously, most important, it's the flexibility. What kind of flexibility does the system offer? And how hard the surface coating becomes? And for handling property, like these systems are moisture sensitive. Can they be applied in thick coatings in one pass? And for concrete protection, obviously, like concrete adhesions, very important. That involves dry or damp concretes. So, if we look at the typical flexible systems, you can see for 2K flexible urethane and 2K flexible polyureas, both involve use of isocyanate. So, some isocyanate obviously has very handling of isocyanate requires special precaution. And so, I list it red. We look at performance for cure speed. Both polyurethane doesn't cure as fast as polyurea. The most important feature of the urethanes and ureas, like they can have outstanding flexibility. Other properties, like their moisture tolerance, is not as good, and you cannot apply thick coating in one pass. Because of the presence of isocyanate, so it can only be used to dry concrete. These are very good flexible systems. What about 2K epoxy? 2K epoxy ticks all the boxes if designed properly to meet all these requirements. However, typical standard epoxy, the flexibility is very poor. Usually under 10%. If we can design an epoxy system with flexibility, then it will tick all the boxes and then meet all the requirements. How can we enhance our flexibility in a 2K epoxy system? You can see that because 2K, so obviously you can work with both doing modification to both A-side and B-side system. So for B-side, the curing agent side, to modify a standard epoxy to make it more flexible, one of the common approaches is to plasticize with nonylphenol. Nonylphenol does improve. Nonylphenol does improve the flexibility. However, at low temperature, the flexibility sometimes can be diminished, and tensile strength will also reduce. So one of the negative caveats about nonylphenol is that it's a substance of very high concern. So obviously, if we don't need to use nonylphenol, so we should avoid it. So let's from the curing agent side, the B-side. What about the A-side? On the resin side, epoxy-functional polyurethane. It's a very common modifier to use to enhance flexibility. So with this type of modifier, you can increase the flexibility, increase elongation, and maintain high strength and modulus. But these modifiers usually are higher in viscosity, so can pose some handling challenges. Another approach to modify the A-side resin viscosity is to use reactive diluent at low level to improve elongation. However, the downside of this reactive diluent is it can reduce strength. So the common reactive diluent can be either monofunctional or difunctional. So monofunctional would be like a long alkyl chain reactive diluent or like a difunctional reactive diluent. So another modifier for the resin side is long-chain acrylates, such as like a lauryl acrylate and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate. So that's both A-side and B-side. So in addition to that, plasticizers, like common plasticizers such as benzyl alcohol used in epoxy systems, can help to reduce the viscosity, like improve handling property. Plasticizers like benzyl alcohol maintain the flexibility but reduce the strength. So in the table, I summarized what I just described for both A-side and B-side. You can see that wherever the red means reduction and the upper bracket or arrow pointing up, it's increased. So you can see none of these approaches is perfect to increase the flexibility of our epoxy system. So these are mostly additive approaches. What about I modify this? What about I modify that? So from a chemistry point of view, what makes a polymer flexible and tough? Using polyurethane as an example, on the top picture, the chemical structures are showing two polyurethane chains. You can see that's a hydrogen bonding formation between chains. So the hydrogen bonding in polyurethane systems acts as a non-covalent cross-linking point that increases the strength. We know that polyurethane has a very unique structure of a hard and soft segment. So hard segment, with all the proper design, you can see the hard segment increases the strength. And then soft segment, if you're using flexible polyurethane, can help with flexibility. In addition to the hydrogen bonding, that's what makes a polyurethane polymer flexible and tough. So the same principle can be applied to an epoxy system. So how about we design a curing agent with the same principle? So here I'm showing a polyamide structure. So you can see that in the blue circle, those moieties can form hydrogen bonding between two chains. And then with the amine, like a chain, if we incorporate some flexibility, so we could achieve similar properties to polyurethane, flexible and tough. So with this, before I dive into our next, why we design and develop new material, I would like to take a survey to see among the typical applications for using epoxy systems. What are the audience? What are you guys doing using epoxy, not just flexible systems? So Derek, can you bring up the first poll, please? Oh, that's great. I see most of the polls coming in. So definitely a lot of our audience are working on construction and flooring. So actually, that's aligned with what the focus today. So the focus of our drivers, excuse me. So why we are developing new materials? So obviously, we get to understand the market trends and drivers, and also get the voice of customers. So all our new product developments are focused on the market, are driven by market trends and drivers. For the epoxy system I'm focusing on, we focus on what we call three Es, enhanced performance, efficiency, and EHS and eco-friendly. Under each category, obviously, it's the performance attribute. There are performance attributes under each category. For the purpose of today's webinar, we focus on high flexibility and low temperature of flexibility. But obviously, efficiency is very important. Fast return to service, the system can cure at low temperature, and EHS and eco-friendly, like no substance of high concern, use renewable resource, raw materials, and aiming for sustainability. With these drivers in mind, we identify our main needs through voice of our customer to have a flexible and tough epoxy that can cure fast and with a very good EHS profile. The requirements are listed in this table on the left. So, fast return to service, that's under the efficiency I show in previous slide. And then the following four categories, like high elongation, high flexibility, high strength, low temperature flexibility, that's all improved performance and enhanced EHS profile. So list the needs customers are asking for a product like that. So what are the available technologies out there? Are there any technology or products that can meet this requirement? So we surveyed the best product out in the market. You can see that commercial product from A to E, none of them tick all the boxes. Each one of them has some kind of deficiency. So that was the objective for our product development, is to develop a product that meets all these requirements. And as I showed in previous, like in the background. An introduction slide, how can we design an epoxy system that's also strong and flexible? With that design in mind, we were able to develop two new products that address the market needs in the flexible epoxy system, so the Ancamide 2853 and 2865. So 2853, the product has different attributes. Both are flexible. But you can see the scale at the bottom. 2853 has very high elongation. It has higher viscosity. I'll show in the next slide, darker color. And 2865 has 90% less elongation, but still a very good elongation, 90% elongation, lower viscosity, and lighter color. Both of these products are nonylphenol-free and contain biocontent, 40% for 2853 and 20% for 2865. And then the use level for each product is different. Both products have very good tensile strength. So dive deeper into the performance and handling property of these two products. So both are nonylphenol-free. So as I mentioned in previous slide, that 2853 has higher viscosity, close to 3,000 versus 2865. The viscosity is under 500. So the upper portion of the table is showing the handling property, and the lower portion showing more like some of the performance. So you can see that both products can be used with a range of mixed ratios. So PHR for 2853, it's 100-130, and 2865, it's 85-95. So for the testing PHR, like the test data at the bottom of the table, for 2853, we use 130 PHR, and 2865, we use 90 PHR. So you can see the mixed ratio excuse me, the mixed viscosity for 2865, obviously, it's higher versus lower viscosity on 2865 on the right. Both have very good Shore D hardness and very good working time. 2853 has 50 minutes of working time, and 2860, which is excellent, and 2865, 30 minutes of working time. Both cure like five to six hours. So both materials are flexible and tough. So we look at things that are very flexible. We look at the thermal property of these two. Imagine the glass transition temperature and by DSC. After seven-day cure, both systems show glass transition temperature about two degrees Celsius. And both systems have very good cure under ambient and low temperature, over 90%, even at 10 degrees Celsius. So the bottom portion of the table is showing very good elongation. So high tensile strength, usually for flexible system, either it's very flexible and doesn't have very good strength or very strong good strength, doesn't have flexibility. So these two products actually combine the flexibility and toughness, over 2,000 tensile strength. And you can see the elongation of 2853 is very high. It's over 150%, and both have low temperature flexibility. In addition, you can see that the tear strength is very high for both systems. And 2865 has higher tear strength than 2853. So as I mentioned in previous slide, that both systems can use a range of PHR. So another feature of these two systems is that you can adjust the strength and flexibility by changing the mixed ratio, the PHR. So these two tables, the top table is showing the results for 2853, and the bottom for 2865. So the PHR for 2853, between 100 and 130, you can see that using higher PHR, more 2853, you can get much higher elongation, but strength, it's not as good, but still outstanding. It's over 2,000 versus 2,000 PSI. Tear strength, so the tensile strength decreases with higher PHR, but then elongation increases. The tear strength is also the same trend as the tensile strength. Higher PHR, less tear strength, but then lower PHR, higher tear strength. The same trend is observed for the 2865 system. One thing I forgot to mention that for both systems, the beauty is you don't need to use any modifier. They provide this excellent elongation just with standard liquid epoxy resin, like Epon 828 or D.E.R. 331, with a 90-10 weight ratio, with 10% of the reactive diluent, Epodil 748. Basically, you can adjust the strength and the flexibility by adjusting the use level. The next question you might ask, well, if I use higher PHR versus lower PHR, how does that impact the working time? So you can see here that the working time actually is very comparable across different mixed ratio. So this table on the left, it's the 2853, and on the right, it's 2865. You can see that different PHR, the gel time, it's within a couple of minutes for 2853 and for 2865. Basically, they are very similar. And mixed viscosity, it's all about the same. And then the bottom chart shows the mixed viscosity of both systems using different PHR. You can see that viscosity is very close to each other. So before I dive into the next section, I'm presenting to you two systems, I would like to take another poll just to see what are the important attributes, like performance attributes for your application. So Derek, if you could bring up the second poll, it'd be great. Thank you. Great. I see most of the audience focus on the flexibility and EHS friendly is also important. Okay. That's great. Thank you for the poll, so since these are flexible materials, so what's interesting, an obvious question is, if you pull these materials, do they recover? Do they stay stretchy, or do they recover to original shape? We did a tensile recovery study here, so the picture I'm just showing is a specimen for both systems. On the left, it's 2853. On the right, it's 2865. Original means before it's been pulled, and then this is the ASTM D638 test, and then we pull to 50% and then 80%. But obviously, because once you pull, it's kind of recovered back, so we didn't get it. You had to see once you release from the tensile, these actually stretch back. But we can definitely see that after pull, that these specimens become longer. So 50% become longer, and then 80% become even longer. And then the same is for 2865 specimen. 2865, we don't see as much because we wait a bit longer to take the pictures, so actually recover back. But then if we let these poor samples recover at 60 degrees Celsius oven for an hour and then ambient for two hours, they all go back to the original shape, the size. So they do a stretch recover back. So to show this study in actually more quantitative data, so this slide presents the tensile recovery on the top and then temperature effect at the bottom. So the top table shows the 50% pull and 80% pull, like I showed a picture in previous slide. And to explain the data a little bit, the percent tensile strength recover. So basically, the original means that we just pull once, and then we get tensile strength and elongation. And then this table, 50% pull, we let it recover, and then we pull again. You can see at 50% pull, basically, we didn't see too much, only about 5%-ish decrease after 50% pull. But then 80% pull, we still see very good 80% recovery. The same is observed for 2865 system. So they do recover. And do temperature, heating affect the elongation and strength? So we heat a specimen at 50 and 70 degrees Celsius for two hours. You can see at the temperature, at least up to 70 degrees Celsius, you don't see much impact on strength and elongation. So the same picture with 1,000 hours. So I didn't show a video here, but I just want to show you how these materials actually recover and how the flexibility kind of displays. So on the left of this picture, we have two strips. The original, it's just flat on the table, and then basically, we make this twist, like a pretzel twist. And then you release this paper clip, and then it recovers. So for the darker one, it's 2853. So 2853 takes about seven minutes to recover to go flat on surfaces. You don't stretch it, let it sit, and then it will go back to original shape. And then 2865 takes about 20 minutes. So these are flat on the table. And we also hang this on the wall. So you pull these up at one minute. The darker color, 2853, definitely droop quite a bit versus 2865. It's much stiffer. And then at the bottom, 2853, after six minutes, definitely droop a lot more. And then 2865 droop more, but not as significant. Another question for flexible systems is, do they maintain flexibility over time? We checked the flexibility. On the left side, it's a two-year-old sample of 2853. You can still do a pretzel twist. We didn't have in one the tensile, but they look like nothing, at least flexibility-wise, visually hasn't changed. On the right, it's a younger set of samples, 2853. Then we made these casting thicker. On the left, these strips are an eighth-inch thick. Then on the right, for 2865, those are quarter-inch thick and half-inch thick. You can see that you can still just by visually maintain the flexibility. How about what are these two products available globally? Regulatory status-wise, both products are available in the majority of the country except in Europe. These two products are not on REACH, but available in most of other countries. And you can see the EHS profile, just typical amine curing agents, corrosive, and the warning sign. It doesn't have the health hazard pictogram. So in summary, that I showed this before, the standard chart before, that standard epoxy ticked most of the boxes except the flexibility. Now, with the newly developed 2853 and 2865, you can see that both fulfill the unmet market needs. Now, tick all the boxes. And finally, to summarize, the main feature of these two products, 2853 and 2865, very high elongation with fast hardness development and excellent tensile and tear strength, maintaining low temperature flexibility. It doesn't contain any substance of high concern and contains bio content. And with additional other features, you can read on the screen. And at this point, I would like to end our webinar and take any questions you guys might have. Wonderful. Just as a reminder to the audience, on the bottom right-hand corner of your screen is the questions tab. If you'll open that up, you can ask your questions there. And we'll get to as many as we can with the remaining time that we have. We do have a few questions that have come in. One of the first ones we have here, are these products currently commercially available? Yes, they are. So they are. We have both products in stock, yes. Are they made in the U.S.? Yes, they are made in continental U.S. in the lower 48 states. We've had a couple of questions about getting a physical example or a sample. Is that available? Yes, samples are available, so you can contact us, and then we can send you a sample free of charge. You just need to see what kind of application you want to use these products. We have a question here about heating up the specimens. Will their flexibility be maintained if heated up? Yes. So let's in our slide. Let me see what slide. Oh, sorry. Next. So let's look at the temperature. We only go up to 70 degrees Celsius and maintain our flexibility and strength, yes. Will Evonik go for the REACH registration? That depends on demand. So if it's chicken and egg, if there's a strong demand in Europe, yes, we would. So that remains to be seen, yes. What is the shelf life for the raw materials? Both products have typical two years or 24 months shelf life storing at ambient temperature in closed container. Do you have TDSs ready to share? Yes. So at the end of the webinar, there'll be a landing page, a demo we'll show, and then we can send out. If you just search Ancamide 2853 and 2865 in Google, they'll pop up a page, Evonik product page, and then you can download the TDS from there. And chances, yes, they are available and then easily accessible. And what about the corrosion performance? How do these curing resins perform with their corrosion performance? So that's an area we actually haven't tested yet. So obviously, that will be our next task, is just looking at the corrosion performance of these two products. So we haven't tested that yet. Are these products pure polyamides or amidoamines? I think I said that right. So, these two products, we call polyamides. So, epoxy curing agent, it's not like it's formulated polyamide. So, they are polyamide, but obviously, we have other components there to help to achieve the target performance. Where does the bio content come from? That's from raw materials, so we have raw materials to make the polyamide actually come from natural resource. What is the difference in flexibility between both products between 77 degrees, I think is that Fahrenheit, 77 degrees Fahrenheit and negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit? So, actually, we have not tested. So, I did show past low temperature flexibility test. So, we didn't have the facility to test low temperature flexibility. So, the ambient temperature, obviously, we get elongation and tensile strength. But low temperature, we only do the bending test. So, we put in freezer and then take it out of freezer and then just bend and see if they crack. So, that was the test we have so far. What type of bio oil fatty acid are used in these grades? They are multiple sources of bio oil used to make polyamide. Obviously, this question, it's a good question. I would prefer to get in touch with the person who asked the question after the webinar, and we can discuss in more detail. Are these used as protective coatings for metal enclosures? Not yet. So right now, the focus for the application for us, it's mostly just for concrete protection. And also, we're looking into the application in adhesive, but we haven't looked into metal protection yet because that involves a completely different set of tests. Are these products commercially available in India? Let me go back to it, I believe so. But let me just go back to the slide here. It's not listed yet. So let me double-check and get back to you so we can be in touch after the webinar. So all the questions didn't get answered. So after the webinar, I'll reach out to the person who asked the question and then try to give you an answer on that. Because obviously, I see a lot of questions, so we won't be able to answer all the questions. Right. Yeah. Well, I think we have time for maybe one more. What's the primary difference between 2853 and 2865, and why would you choose one over the other? Okay. So let me go to this slide. I mean, I just want to show the slide when I talk. So in this slide, basically, it's showing the difference between the two. So it really depends. So 2853, it's much higher elongation. It's higher viscosity, darker color versus 2865. So it depends on your particular application and requirement. You will choose one over the other. Thank you, everyone, for attending today's webinar. Just as a reminder, we will send you a link to the recording of today's webinar so you can watch it at any time and share it with others at your company. We will also follow up with the questions that were asked. We just didn't have time to get to today. But now you'll be redirected to Evonik's website for more information. Thank you for attending, and have a great day. Thank you all for attending, and thank you for all the good questions and the poll. Thank you very much, and have a good day, everyone.