In the early 1950’s, red lead alkyd paints were used for corrosion protection but greater protection was needed. Inorganic zinc primers were developed to give better corrosion protection than red lead. But zincs are sacrificial and in corrosive environments degrade quickly and so they work best when top coated. Due to the alkaline nature of the zinc, alkyd resins could not be used over zinc primers. A new, synthetic polymer was developed for use over zinc and was called epoxy. Epoxy provides excellent chemical and corrosion resistance.

Epoxy is made by reacting Phenol with either Acetone or Formaldehyde making Bisphenol Acetate or Bisphenol Formaldehyde. Those products are then reacted with Epichlorohydrin to make DGEBA* or DGEBF**. Most epoxy resins are made from DGEBA. BURKE epoxies are made from DGEBF because the F epoxy provides more reactive groups on the backbone chain, resulting in higher crosslinking density in the film.

Both A and F epoxies have benzene rings surrounded by Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules with F epoxies having more of these. These molecules react with the Nitrogen and Hydrogen molecules in the amine curing agents to crosslink the resin creating a durable film. We use Cyclo-Aliphatic Amine curing agent with BURKE Epoxy because they possess multifunctionality, meaning there is more than one chemical reaction per site, per molecule, resulting in higher crosslinking potential, giving higher corrosion resistance.

Most companies use Bis-A epoxy and cure that with a polyamide curing agent. The polyamide curing agent only reacts one time with each reactive group on the epoxy chain. Using the BURKE Bis-F epoxy, we have more reactive groups and with amine curing agent get multiple chemical reactions with each group.

More reactive groups
+
more chemical reactions with each group
=
a much tighter and tougher film than what others provide.

Our epoxy systems are designed to cure at ambient temperature, but for any of you who took some high school or college chemistry, you know that heating a chemical reaction will greatly speed up that reaction. Adding heat to our chemical reaction of epoxy and amine, excites the amine particles to be more highly reactive than they are at ambient temperature, driving them to react more vigorously with the epoxy groups developing an even more robust film – on the order of 7 to 10 times more durable than air dried. We use 100% Novolac based epoxy – the best chemical resistant material there is.