Launch of Astral Effect Series

Glassflake Ltd are proud to announce the launch of our new and exciting Moonshine® Astral® effect series of pigments. This series of products is based on a new substrate with a very low heavy metal composition and an average thickness of 350 nanometres.

The development of this new range of effect pigments has only been possible with proprietary borosilicate flaking technology. By use of this production method, it is possible to significantly reduce the substrate thickness by over 60% from the industry standard of 1 micron. Linked to the much lower thickness is a greater control over variation in thickness – with these materials the average thickness is controlled tightly to ±50 nanometres.

The lower thickness of the Astral® effect series offers a far higher aspect ratio, allowing vibrant effects even at very fine particle size diameters. These much smaller pigment partciles are then suitable for a wider range of end applications, including printing inks and additive manufacturing. The lower thickness also gives the pigments much higher transparency, lending excellent properties in areas such as polymer films. With such a small particle size there is very little surface distruption to coatings and composites, allowing high surface gloss.