Pigments

What is Pigment?

A pigment is a material that changes the colour of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. In other words, it’s a substance that appears a certain colour because it selectively absorbs certain wavelength of light.

The primary purpose to use pigments is to provide colour to materials, whether they are textiles or paints. Some people often consider pigments and dyes to be the same but they’re quite different. The major difference between the both is in terms of their solubility.

While a dye can dissolve by itself in a liquid, pigments can be dissolved in a liquid with the help of a binder. Dyes are primarily applied in the textile and paper industry, pigments are used in industries such as colouring paints, inks, cosmetics, and plastics.

Types of Pigments

Based on the method of their formulation, pigments can be categorized into two types: inorganic pigments and organic pigments.

Organic Pigments:

This type of pigments occurs naturally and they’ve been used for centuries. They’re quite simple in their chemical structure. They’re named organic as they contain minerals and metals that give them their colour. Organic pigment manufacturers produce them through a simple process that’s made of washing, drying, powdering and combining into a formulation.

Compared to inorganic pigments, these usage of these pigments is less frequent and that’s why there are limited number of organic pigment suppliers. These pigments are used when the required colour strength isn’t too much.

Inorganic Pigments:

As you can guess by its name, this type of pigments is exactly the opposite type of organic pigments. These pigments are also known as “synthetic pigments.” They’re formulized in labs and offer great scope of control to inorganic pigment manufacturers.Inorganic pigments are manufactured by relatively simple chemical processes such as oxidation.

Inorganic pigment suppliers supply this type of pigments mainly to paints, plastics, synthetic fibres and ink industry. In uses where bright colours are required, organic pigments are used as they bolster high colour strength. Inorganic pigments include white opaque pigments which are commonly used to lighten other colours and also to provide opacity.

Two other types of pigments are metallic pigments and industrial pigments.

Metallic pigments, as implied in the name, include metal pigments such as zinc and aluminium pigments. While industrial pigments are the pigments that are widely used in the industrial applications and include organic, inorganic and the metallic pigments.

What is Pigment? A pigment is a material that changes the colour of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. In other words, it’s a substance that appears a certain colour because it selectively absorbs certain wavelength of light. The primary purpose to use pigments is to provide colour to materials, whether…