PIGMENTS

ChE Industrial Chemistry│Engr. Angeles

Reported by: Fernandez, Mojica, Noriel, Orillosa
 What Is Pigment
 History Of Pigment
 General Properties
 Types Of Pigment
 Pigments are granular solids incorporated
into the paint to contribute color,
toughness, texture or simply to reduce
the cost of the paint.

 Alternatively,some paints contain dyes

instead of or in combination with
pigments.

What is Pigment?
What is Pigment?
 Pigments were produced on a larger scale by
the Egyptians and the Chinese.
 Earth colours were cleaned and washed
increasing their strength and purity, and new
pigments appeared from minerals such as
Malachite, Azurite and Cinnabar prized as
the first known bright red.
 Egyptian Blue was first produced around
3,000 BC - a blue glass made from sand
and copper which was ground into a
powder.

History
Malachite is bright green color made of mineral
Malachite. It is native carbonate of copper. It was one
of the very popular greens of creating manuscripts,
medieval painting in Europe and Asia. Still used in the
Orient specially in Japan. Malachite is probably the
oldest known green pigment also occurs in Egyptian
tomb paintings.

Azurite, is a natural basic copper carbonate. This

mineral is a secondary copper mineral frequently
found in the oxidized zones of copper bearing ore
deposits around the world. Azurite has been used
as a pigment as early as the Fourth Dynasty in
Egypt.
Egyptian Blue is a copper
calcium silicate that was
the first synthetic pigment
and the most extensively
used from the early
dynasties in Egypt until the
end of the Roman period in
Europe.

Cinnabar is bright scarlet to brick-red

form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS) that is
the most common source ore for
refining elemental mercury. It is an
historical pigment but surprisingly not
found in ancient Egyptian or early
Mesopotamian objects. It was well
known to the Romans and widely used in
China since the third millennium B.C.
 Vegetable dyes were also developed by
the Egyptians, who discovered the ‘lake’
making process of producing pigment.
 In China, the brilliant red that came
from Vermilion was developed 2,000
years before it was used by the
Romans.

History
 The Greeks also manufactured white lead,
the first fully opaque white – namely
Flake White and Cremnitz White –
which involved stacking lead strips in a
confined space amongst vinegar and
animal dung.

History
 Tyrian Purple came to signify power
and wealth and was used by both the
Greeks and the Romans. It was
complicated to make, cost a fortune and
involved using the mucus from thousands
of Murex snails.

History
 Renaissance
◦ With the rebirth of interest in artistry, the
Italians threw themselves into developing the
range of earth pigments by roasting siennas
and umbers to make the deep rich red of
Burnt Sienna and the rich brown of Burnt
Umber.
◦ Earth colours featured heavily in their painting
technique, Terre Verte (Green Earth) being
the principle under-painting colour for flesh
tones.

History
 Renaissance
◦ One of the most astonishing pigments
came from the semi-precious stone lapis
lazuli, found largely in Afghanistan, and used
to produce Geniune Ultramarine.
◦ It allowed artists to create a deep rich blue
and was the most expensive pigment in the
world.
◦ Paintings that used it were considered a great
luxury and led artists to use it to paint The
Madonna’s clothing as a way of reflecting her
status and power.

History
  The Virgin in Prayer,
1640-50, by Sassoferrato

 Virgin Mary,
1426, Masaccio

History
 Modern Times, Modern Methods
◦ The opening up of trade routes in the 18th
century coupled with advances in technology
and science allowed for greater
experimentation.
◦ In 1704, a German colour maker Diesbach
created Prussian Blue by accident in his
laboratory and this became the first
chemically synthesized colour.

History
 Modern Times, Modern Methods
◦ In 1828 a low cost blue was created by
Jean-Baptiste Guimet called French
Ultramarine. The artificial pigment is
chemically identical to genuine ultramarine but
physically finer and has none of the impurities
of the lapis rock.

History
 Modern Times, Modern Methods
◦ The isolation of new elements in the late 18th
century also played a part in providing new
colours. Deposits of chrome in the USA in
1820 eased the manufacture of Chrome
Yellow, a highly opaque low cost colour
available in a variety of hues.

History
 Modern Times, Modern Methods
◦ The isolation of Zinc gave rise to Zinc Oxide
which was used as an artists' white in
preference to lead white as it was less
hazardous and more permanent particularly
in water colour.

History
 Modern Times, Modern Methods
◦ However it lacked opacity until 1834 when
Winsor & Newton developed a method of
heating the oxide to increase its opacity. This
new type of Zinc Oxide was called Chinese
White.

History
 Modern Times, Modern Methods
◦ Alizarin is arguably the most important
organic pigment of the 19th century. It was
found as a colourant in the roots of the
madder plant, but independent work in both
◦ Germany and Great Britain managed to
duplicate it synthetically in the laboratory – the
first time this had ever been achieved. This
more affordable synthetic pigment provided a
blue shade crimson of strong tinting
strength and high transparency and was an
immediate hit with artists.

History
 Color
 Tinting Strength
 Opacity
 Transparency
 Fastness to Light
 Weatherfastness
 Resistance to Heat
 Solubility

General Properties
 Color
 Color is a sensation resulting from the
activation of the retina of the eye by
electromagnetic vibrations which we describe
as light waves. These light waves vary in
wavelength and each wavelength creates
specific sensation. The longest waves
produce the sensation which we describe as
red and the shortest give the sensation of
blue. The range of sensations between red
and blue, which we call colors, is known as
visible spectrum.

General Properties
 Color

General Properties
 Tinting Strength
 Tinting strength is the property in which a
colored pigment retains its distinctive color
when combined with another pigment. It
differs one pigment to another and is
influenced by the pigment’s molecular and
crystalline structure. It is also dependent on
the particle size and the exposed surface
area of the pigment, both of which, in turn,
are controlled by the degree of dispersion,
aggregation, and flocculation, among others.

General Properties
 Opacity
 Also known as “hiding” or “obliterating
power”. It is the ability of a pigment to
cover a surface when dispersed in a
medium and applied in a uniform film
over the surface. The opacity of a pigment
or extender is a function of the degree to
which the incident light is scattered from
the surface. This depends on the
difference in refractive index between the
pigment and the dispersion medium.

General Properties
 Transparency
 The breaking up of pigment agglomerates
into its primary particles during the
dispersion process affects transparency.
Transparency can be measured by
applying the paint on a contrast chart and
getting the color difference. A bigger color
difference means a bigger difference in
transparency.

General Properties
 Fastness to Light
 The inherent ability to retain its initial color
when exposed to light is an important
property of a pigment.
 The lightfastness of a pigment depends on a
number of factors, the most important of
which are chemical constitution, purity,
physical condition, and conditions of
exposure.
 The lightfastness property of a pigment is
determined by the wood scale, initially
created for the textile industry.

General Properties
 Weather fastness
 Weather fastness is the effect of UV light
and environmental conditions, acting at
the same time or alternately. The
combined effect of weather and UV light
has a faster effect on pigment
degradation than light alone. Pigments for
exterior applications should be chosen for
their weather resistance properties.

General Properties
 Resistance to Heat
 Many paint films encounter heat during a
stoving process, or they may be applied
to surfaces which remain at high
temperatures for long periods of time. It
is important that the pigments used in
such types of paints are heat-resistant.
Some pigments are not stable at high
temperatures, which may affect their
other properties like fastness and color.

General Properties
 Solubility
 Ideally, pigments should be insoluble in the
vehicle used in the formulation, although
there are some organic pigments that exhibit
solubility.
 The solubility of a pigment in the medium
may generate technical problems. Bleeding is
the term used to describe the discoloration or
straining which sometimes occur when white-
or light-colored paint is applied over a deeper
color. This is due to the solubilizing effect of
solvents in the second coat on pigments in
the first coat.

General Properties
 ORGANICPIGMENTS
 INORGANIC PIGMENTS

Types of Pigments
 ORGANIC PIGMENTS
 Are composed of carbon compounds
 Before they were synthetically produced
they were usually of animal and
vegetable origin
 Examples of synthetic organic pigments
are: alizarin, azo-pigments (the yellow,
orange and red colour range),
phthalocyanine (blue and green colour
range) and quinacridone (a lightfast red-
violet pigment)

Types of Pigments
  Alizarin or 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone
(also known as Mordant Red 11 and
Turkey Red[1]) is an organic compound
with formula C14H8O4 that has been
used throughout history as a prominent
red dye, principally for dyeing textile
fabrics. Historically it was derived from
the roots of plants of the madder genus.
In 1869, it became the first natural dye to
be produced synthetically.

 Alizarin changes color depending on

the pH of the solution it is in, thereby
making it a pH indicator

Organic Pigments
  Azo dyes are organic compounds bearing
the functional group R−N=N−R′, in which R
and R′ are usually aryl. They are a
commercially important family of azo
compounds, like compounds containing the
linkage C-N=N-C. Azo dyes are widely used
to treat textiles, leather articles, and some
foods. Chemically related to azo dyes are
azo pigments, which are insoluble in water
and other solvents.

Organic Pigments
  Phthalocyanine is an intensely
blue-green-colored aromatic
macrocyclic compound that is widely
used in dyeing and the first
phthalocyanine (Pc) was
synthesized accidentally in 1907 as
an unidentified blue compound when
o-cyanobenzamide was heated at
high temperature and that substance
is currently known to be the metal-
free phthalocyanine

Organic Pigments
  Quinacridone is an organic
molecule used in the formation of
organic pigments. It is an organic
compound with the molecular
formula C20H12N2O2. Numerous
derivatives of quinacridone
constitute the Quinacridone pigment
family, which finds extensive use in
industrial colorant applications such
as robust outdoor paints, inkjet
printer ink and color laser printer
toner. The pigments have also found
use in artists' watercolor paints.

Organic Pigments
 INORGANIC PIGMENTS
 Are metal compounds, for example
oxides
 Compared to organic pigments they are
few in number
 Are made by relatively simple chemical
reactions —notably oxidation— or are
found naturally as earths.

Types of Pigments
 Inorganic Pigments are divided into two
sub types:

 Natural Inorganic Pigments

 Synthetic Inorganic Pigments
 Natural Inorganic Pigments
 are the earth colors in natural form like
ochers, umbers etc. These color pigments are
extracted from the earth bed. Iron oxide and
hydroxide which are present in the soil. These
two compounds are responsible for the
coloration of these color pigments. Clay, chalk
and silica are also present in these pigments in
varying quantity.
  Azurite are copper carbonates
having greenish blue shading. From a
very long period, azurite has been
using as a pigment. But, often these
pigments have been replaced by
synthetic pigments or used to paint
the expensive ultramarine as under
paintings.

 Red earths are the most diverse

kind of natural inorganic pigments.
These are made from clays and
they have a large amount of iron
oxide. The color varies from dull
yellow to dull deep yellow or from
dull orange to dull red or from dull
dark brown to darkbrown.

Inorganic Pigments
  Yellow earths - These are natural
earth containing silica and clay. These
pigments are present in hydrous form of
iron oxide. These pigments also contain
gypsum or manganese carbonate. In all
over the world, these pigments are
available and have been using from the
prehistoric period.

 Synthetic Inorganic Pigments

 Synthetic inorganic pigments are manufactured
in the laboratory. These pigments consists of
metallic compounds like manganese violet,
cobalt blue. It can also be produced by the
replication of the natural earth colors like Mars
Red or Yellow. As these pigments are
manufactured in the laboratory, so they are
found in pure form having fine particles.
Types of Pigments