Sherwin-Williams Once Again Invests in the Chinese Market, Targeting R&D and Innovation

After Sherwin-Williams, the world's largest coatings company, sold its architectural coatings business in China to AkzoNobel last year, it stated that it would continue to develop its industrial coatings business in China. Subsequently, Sherwin-Williams implemented an investment in an industrial coatings production capacity expansion project in China. Now, Sherwin-Williams has once again stepped up its efforts in China and set its sights on R&D and innovation.

In order to enhance R&D innovation capabilities, meet the needs of Chinese customers and increase market share, Sherwin-Williams (Nantong) Paint Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sherwin-Williams, plans to invest in the construction of Sherwin-Williams East China R&D laboratory project.

In order to meet the needs of research and development of new products, improvement of original products and product testing, Sherwin-Williams plans to purchase an extruder room, a grinding room, an electrostatic spray drying room, a dedicated laboratory and corresponding testing equipment. The East China R&D laboratory project will be constructed in the existing factory area No. 2 office building. No new land will be added, and the decoration construction area will be about 1,500 square meters.

Sherwin-Williams stated that due to the inherent physical performance shortcomings of water-based coatings, their construction performance is limited and they cannot meet the quality requirements of the product. While the polyurethane resin coating itself has the advantages of good film performance, stable physical and chemical properties, high cost performance, and wide applicability. Therefore, the large-scale promotion of water-based coatings is limited. Currently, high-performance environmentally friendly solvent-based products still occupy the mainstream market. Therefore, the use of high-performance environmentally friendly solvent-based paints by enterprises at the current stage is irreplaceable.

This renovation project develops high-performance environmentally friendly wood coatings and high-performance environmentally friendly industrial coatings, including water-based acrylic paint, water-based light-curing paint, light-curing paint, polyurethane paint, epoxy resin paint, acrylic paint, epoxy zinc-rich paint, alkyd paint, inorganic zinc-rich paint, silicone paint, polyester resin paint, epoxy polyester powder coating, polyester powder coating, polyurethane powder coating, epoxy powder coating, etc.

The Sherwin-Williams Nantong production base was put into operation on July 11, 2019. The factory produces diversified products including water-based, UV (polyurethane ultraviolet light curing) and powder coatings, which are widely used in automobiles, furniture, heavy equipment, infrastructure and other fields. The coating products produced by the factory are not only supplied to the East China market, but also sold throughout the country.

At present, the company has an annual output of 79,000 tons of coatings, including 29,032 tons/year of water-based coatings, 9,272 tons/year of UV coatings, 37,696 tons/year of solvent-based coatings and auxiliary materials, and 3,000 tons/year of powder coatings. After the project reaches full production, it can achieve annual sales revenue of 2.35 billion yuan. In addition, a reconstruction project with an annual output of 10,000 tons of epoxy packaging paint has been approved and is under construction but has not yet been put into operation.