International Space Station ISS

Using instruments from ALTANA, the astronauts of the International Space Station ISS regularly inspect the quality of their drinking water. The instruments are an integral part of the water supply system. Here color measurement is used to guarantee a sufficient concentration of biocides in the water onboard the ISS.

What the astronauts really appreciate: the instruments are easy to operate, absolutely reliable, virtually maintenance-free, and extremely robust with a very long service life.

Cosmetics: Luxury Gold

Effect pigments from ECKART improve high-end cosmetic products. A particular highlight is Sparkling Luxury Gold, a completely new gold effect pigment for cosmetics and personal care. This enables the genuine gold effect desired for so long in the industry to be achieved.

Thanks to an extremely smooth pigment surface, impressive glitter and color effects are produced that lend all colored cosmetics products an extremely luxurious look.

RFID tags

Dielectric plastics from ALTANA are being used in the development of printed electronics to produce new powerful generations of RFID chips.

This enables the printed radio tags, aka RFID (radio frequency identification) tags, to be produced cheaply. They will be able to replace the familiar barcodes in future.

ALTANA makes Paper Surfaces more Scratch Resistant

A newly developed measuring method from ALTANA makes it possible to highlight connections and causes of paper surface marking and, by means of a suitable addition of additives to the paper coating, to increase the scratch resistance of the paper surface.

The scratch resistance of the paper surface is an important and, at the same time, difficult topic.

Energy efficiency in wind turbines

Impregnating resins from ALTANA significantly increase the efficiency of wind turbines. The generators in wind turbines are not simply wound with coated wires; rather they also require a secondary insulation of the winding.

The merits are primarily the electrical insulation and the processing, soundness, safety, and environmental compatibility of the resins. ALTANA has become a solutions provider for the wind power industry due to its special expertise in impregnating resins.

Pigments for seed coating – glistening delicacies

Seeds are often very expensive. A cupful of the best grade of tomato seeds, for example, costs around 10,000 dollars. Unfortunately, seeds perish very easily.

ALTANA has developed an alternative to genetic engineering. A special coating makes the seed made more resistant and better able to germinate. In turn, the seeds can be stored longer and utilzied, while the value is preserved.

ALTANA takes to the sky

Airbus is a European joint venture, with the parts for the A 380 being supplied by lots of different firms across Europe. So that the individual components match in appearance, Airbus has laid down strict guidelines for the quality control.

This is where the innovative high-precision photometers of ALTANA come in. They measure the surface quality of all the components in terms of color, gloss, and leveling (orange peel).