Improve Surface Appearance of Floor Finishes with Capstone™
Enhancing Floor Finishes
Floor finishes are essential for maintaining and protecting floors, especially those in highly trafficked areas. Surface wetting, or how easily a liquid coating or finish spreads on a surface, plays a critical role in the performance of floor finish formulations on many floors made of wood, stone, tile, concrete, or laminate. Finishes with poor wetting ability typically do not make sufficient contact with the floor substrate, resulting in uneven films with surface defects. The diagram below depicts a finish formulation on the left with poor wetting ability, which cannot provide good coverage to the floor.
To effectively wet the flooring, the surface tension of the finish formulation must be lower than the surface energy of the flooring. In cases where floor finishes do not sufficiently wet out the floor, a surfactant must be added to reduce the surface tension of the formulation and improve wetting ability.
Improve Surface Wetting & Leveling with Capstone™
Capstone™ fluorosurfactants are highly effective wetting agents that can be added to floor finish and floor care formulations to dramatically lower surface tension and boost surface wetting onto floors. This improvement in wetting results in finishes and polishes that form more uniform films that level out better on the flooring, leading to floor finishes with fewer surface defects and higher gloss. To demonstrate the improvement in performance using Capstone™, floor finishes with and without Capstone™ FS-60 were applied to vinyl tiles and compared under magnification, shown below.
The floor finish without Capstone™ fluorosurfactant showed significant surface defects, while the floor finish containing Capstone™ FS-60 showed dramatically improved leveling and far fewer surface defects. In addition to improved wetting, Capstone™ fluorosurfactants have been shown to improve the rewet characteristics of a floor finish. This allows for multicoat applications during maintenance without the appearance of haze. Capstone™ may also be used in floor polish removal systems, where its resistance to alkali contributes to good performance in penetrating and wetting older finishes for removal.
Formulation Recommendations
Capstone™ fluorosurfactants are typically used at very low rates in floor finish formulations, ranging from 0.005 to 0.05% actives. They also will not interfere with hydrocarbon surfactants used as emulsifiers for waxes and resins in the formulation. The grades listed below are the Capstone™ fluorosurfactants most used in floor care applications for wood, stone, tile, concrete, and laminate floors.
In many cases, Capstone™ FS-60 and Capstone™ FS-34 are regarded as general-purpose grades sufficient for floor finish applications to provide excellent wetting, gloss, and rewet characteristics. However, a more specialized grade can offer even more value to a formulation in some cases. For example, Capstone™ FS-65 is an APEO-free and VOC-free option designed for higher solids. In comparison, Capstone™ FS-35 is ideal for thinner, low-solids coatings.
ChemPoint has product experts standing by, ready to help you find the Capstone™ fluorosurfactant for your finish. Contact us today to discuss your floor finish formulation and request more information about Capstone™ fluorosurfactants.
