Cobalt Blue Pigment Production Process

Currently, there are three main production methods for cobalt blue pigment: solid phase method, liquid phase method and gas phase method. Their main production method is to add an appropriate amount of other metal ions to improve the stability and application performance of cobalt blue pigment. The metal ions we often use are: Zn2+, La+, Y3+, etc. With the rapid development of ultra-durable coatings and engineering plastic products in the domestic coatings market, the market demand for cobalt blue pigment is increasing day by day. With the development of nanotechnology, nano cobalt blue is also often used in coatings for high-transmittance automotive lamps. The following pigment blue 60 manufacturer will briefly introduce the production process of cobalt blue.

Solid Phase Method
Cobalt blue pigment was originally produced by a solid phase method in which cobalt oxide and aluminum oxide were mixed in an appropriate proportion, and then ground. Finally, the ground metal solid was directly calcined at high temperature to obtain pigment powder. This production technology has the advantages of simple production process and easy control, but the solid phase production has high reaction temperature, long production time, high energy consumption, and the pigment particles produced are very coarse, the particle size distribution is also very uneven, the high temperature stability and chemical stability are poor, and the coloring ability is weak, so there are certain limitations in application.

Liquid Phase Method
Some high-performance cobalt blue pigments are produced using the liquid phase method, including sol-gel method, liquid phase precipitation method, precipitation-azeotropic distillation method, microemulsion method, crystal decomposition method, spray thermal decomposition method and hydrothermal method, etc. The liquid phase method is to evenly mix the reactants and cobalt blue pigment in the liquid phase so that the reactants can fully react with each other to obtain a pigment with a small particle size and very high purity. The production temperature during calcination of the liquid phase method is lower and easier to control than that of the solid phase method, and it also has excellent high temperature stability and chemical stability.

Gas Phase Method
The gas phase method refers to the process of directly evaporating solid raw materials into steam or gas raw materials that can be used directly under a relatively high production and processing environment, and then making the gas reach a very saturated state after a series of chemical reactions, and then collecting the nano-scale cobalt blue pigment by condensing it into solid nanoparticles. The gas phase method is generally used in a closed container, which ensures that the particles have a higher purity, and the cobalt blue pigment particles produced are very small and the particle shape is very uniform, so it has very excellent dispersibility, which is conducive to the synthesis of high melting point inorganic compound particles.