Briefly describe the difference between leveling agents and flow agents

The widely used terms for flow and leveling are two completely different phenomena that are influenced by different chemical structures. Organic silicone products provide flow control, while acrylic products improve leveling.
 

 1、 Flow (provided by polysiloxane mechanism) is to avoid interfacial tension issues and surface texture interference.
 

A. Control interface tension on multiple interfaces

1. Base material 

2. Surface of paint film

3. Paint film interface (in multi coating system)

B. Avoid turbulence (including eddies and flows inside the coating; flow between local pigments and rheological flow)

2、 Flattening (provided by acrylic structure) makes it possible to obtain the minimum surface area

A、 Higher surface tension

B、 Equilibrium surface tension at gas-liquid interface

C 、 Avoid surface ripples

Starting from these basic concepts, we can analyze the different applications of two types of chemical structures related to their ability to solve coating defects.