The difference between wetting agents, dispersants, and leveling agents

Many times, we talk about wetting agents, dispersants, and leveling agents together. In fact, wetting agents, dispersants, and leveling agents are different in their performance. Next, water-based additive manufacturers will explain the differences between wetting agents, dispersants, and leveling agents.

Wetting agents not only need to have a low surface tension as an external condition, but also an internal condition, which is that their molecular structure has excellent affinity for certain inorganic or organic substances. Simply reducing surface tension is not enough to wet the substance.

And a simple dispersant is a surfactant that mainly plays a dispersing role. After it adheres to particles, it creates a repulsive force between the particles, making it difficult for them to aggregate again, which is the flocculation we see from the surface. And what we usually use is a combination of dispersants and wetting agents, commonly known as wetting dispersants. Wetting agents play a role in guiding dispersants into the various gaps of particles, allowing dispersants to separate all particles and suspend them in the system.

And leveling agents not only reduce the surface tension of substances to achieve wetting leveling, but also the high boiling point solvents in leveling agents can prolong the opening time of the coating surface, giving the coating a longer leveling time. At the same time, most leveling agents on the market currently have additional properties such as smoothness and scratch resistance, and simply leveling cannot meet the needs of customers.