Photo of coloured pigment powder in a container
Once water-based colour paste enters the bead mill, the high shear makes pigment particles re-agglomerate; the Hegman fineness gauge reading bounces back repeatedly, and after standing the paste re-coarsens at the bottom of the tank. The paste's blackness and tinting strength drop batch by batch, and colour matching and filling slow down with it.
Chemi Tech builds the KMK-130 series dispersant for water-based colour paste, paint tinting and ink colouring systems, drawn from our dispersant line. The addition level can be set flexibly against the paste solids and milling intensity. This grade uses anchoring groups to grab the pigment surface, so it does not detach under high-shear milling and achieves viscosity reduction and tinting-strength gain together, with wide adaptability to carbon black and organic pigments. On the basis of measured paste fineness and storage-stability data, the suitable dosage of the KMK-130 series can be given.
Chemi Tech Dispersant Advantages
The KMK-130 series dispersant is configured for water-based colour paste systems. Anchoring is firm: pigment particles do not re-flocculate under high-shear milling, and the fineness drop stays stable; the viscosity reduction is significant, and after the paste's flow improves the milling current trends steady; dispersion stability stands out — the paste does not re-coarsen or settle during storage, and the blackness stays stable; adaptability to carbon black and organic pigments is wide, so no frequent adjustment is needed after a batch change; dosage is economical, set flexibly against paste solids, and the paste meets spec in a single milling pass.
Industry Pain Points and Solutions
Dispersion problems in water-based colour paste mostly share one root cause: high pigment surface energy and insufficient milling shear acting together, which ends up in two places — fineness rebound and storage re-coarsening.
Fineness rebounds repeatedly, slowing the milling tempo and dragging down the paste's batch stability. Once the KMK-130 dosage is set against the milling intensity, fineness can be driven down to target in a single pass.
Storage re-coarsening leaves a hard crust at the tank bottom after standing, and the tinting strength drifts when colour matching. KMK-130's anchoring is stable and effectively removes the pigment's re-flocculation.
Rework in milling and colour matching eventually converts into equipment occupancy and material loss. Against changes in paste solids and milling intensity, the dosage range can be fixed to keep the paste stable and non-re-coarsening through storage.
Typical Conditions and Verification
Customer: a water-based colour paste manufacturer in Guangdong, applied to the bead-milling section for carbon-black black paste.
After this paste maker switched carbon-black grades, the black paste's fineness rebounded frequently; after storage the tank bottom re-coarsened and crusted, and the blackness drifted at colour matching. The fit points became clear: both paste solids and milling intensity sat in the normal range, so the water-based system could be adapted directly. Using KMK-130 as the dispersant for the carbon-black black paste, with dosage set against paste solids. After that, the paste fineness dropped to target in one pass; it did not re-coarsen or settle through storage; and the black paste's blackness stayed stable, with downstream colour-matching complaints clearly reduced.
FAQ
When the paste changes pigment grade, does the dispersion system need to be re-set?
The paste's fineness and blackness both hinge on whether pigment dispersion is done right. KMK-130 has completed milling and storage comparison tests across several carbon-black and organic pigment grades, and within the recommended range the fineness performance stays stable. Actual dosage is set against paste solids as the baseline, with milling intensity and time corrected one by one; Chemi Tech fixes the suitable dosage from the side-by-side comparison of paste fineness and storage stability.