About Colorant Additives
Colorant Additives business, which is part of the Polymer Additives Business Unit, offers customers all over the world a wide range of high-quality colorants under the brand names Bayfast®, Bayplast®, Bayscript®, Levanox®, Levanyl®, Levascreen®, and Macrolex®. Outstanding product quality, long-standing technical expertise, and the fulfillment of wide-ranging regulatory requirements are the critical distinguishing features of the Colorant Additives business product range.
LANXESS is one of the world´s leading manufacturers of solvent dyes for the coloration of engineering thermoplastics sold under the brand name Macrolex®.
As one of the global market leaders in the manufacturing of Pigment Yellow 150, our various PY150 grades are used in a wide range of applications, including printing inks, plastics, automotive coatings, and LCD panels.
As our products are manufactured in Germany, customers benefit from strict regulatory compliance, technical application technology, R&D support, and outstanding levels of quality.
As our products are manufactured in Germany, customers benefit from strict regulatory compliance, technical application technology, R&D support, and outstanding levels of quality.
Our water-based Bayscript® dyes meet all requirements on colorants for the manufacturing of high-quality inks. The product portfolio has been extended to include the novel Bayscript® JetBlack series, which has been designed to meet strict quality requirements in terms of exceptional fastness properties for various ink applications (photo print, stationery inks, coding and marking as well as glass, ceramic and aluminum printing).
LANXESS’ fine paste products are aqueous dispersions of organic pigments (Levanyl®), and inorganic pigments (Levanox®). The dispersing model of all our pigment preparations provides universal technical compatibility for a broad range of industries. Paints and coatings, seed treatment and fertilizers, latex, non-woven textiles, and inks are only few examples.
Applications
news ABOUT colorant additives
Technical Service
As a diversified supplier of high-quality colorants, we aim to provide our customers with solutions in all color-related questions on a global and regional level. Our laboratory in Leverkusen, Germany can assist with technical support. In this regard our technical service units are able to support our customers with a wide range of testing methods, such as color matching, lightfastness, and weather resistance as well as heat stability tests. A fully equipped plastics laboratory, a dispersing center, and a pressure permeation center for desalting and ultrafiltration methods allow for customer-oriented development solutions and can be used for all technical service questions. State-of-the-art analytical laboratories for chemical and physical test methods such as particle size determination, specific surface, trace analytics for metal ions, or organic contamination complement our service portfolio.
Test results of all our dyes and pigments in all relevant amorphous and semi-crystalline thermoplastics have been categorized and are available in both full color and white blend. On this basis, we are in a position to provide color matching services based on customer requests at short notice. Details regarding the field of application, fastness requirements, or the additives used can help us with the precise match. For optimum results, the provision of the customer compound is ideal. We can also provide additional services relating to lightfastness, weather resistance, and heat stability in customer systems.
Color matching also plays a key role with pigment dispersions. LANXESS can provide its customers with precise recipes for a desired color shade based on our Levanyl® and Levanox® pigment preparations. These can be based either on the definition of a standard color shade according to RAL or NCS or by providing a color shade sample or a color recipe. Detailed information on the field of application, fastness requirements, or the additives used can help to provide precise feedback. The color matching is done via a special software that is based on a database of all LANXESS products and is reconfirmed in practical application tests. Since basic systems have a significant impact on color shade and brilliance, it is essential to have access to a sample of the basic system used in the application, allowing us to come back with a good quality elaboration.
Aqueous color solutions for inkjet and writing inks need to meet strict purity requirements. These include high surface tension, very good filterability, the elimination of ultra-fine particles, and the absence of salt. These requirements are met by a number of cleaning steps after the chemical synthesis of the dyes. Amongst others, organic impurities are linked to special types of active charcoal, salts are removed by reverse osmosis, and solid particles are eliminated by several filtration steps with filtration pores of up to 0.2 micrometers. In our LANXESS reverse osmosis laboratory, all cleaning steps on a scale from 10 liters up to 5 cubic meters can be carried out close to production. This enables optimal upscaling of trial products to production size. Our laboratory is also available for customer service functions based on customer requests in order to realize specially cleaned dye qualities or customer-specific requirements.
