The edible film is one of the coating agents that plays a role in the shelf life of food products. Consumers began to ask about the freshness of foods such as fruit, vegetables, meat, and fish when they arrived in their kitchens. Sometimes the shelf life of food products in a store cannot be predicted with precision. When it is stored in the store for a long time until it is in your refrigerator. Can you imagine how much the freshness of the food product has decreased?

To answer any questions regarding the freshness of these foodstuffs, food entrepreneurs have started to use coating agent products that are edible, do not change the taste of food, do not harm body health, and are biodegradable,

Is It Difficult to Find Coating Agent Products in the Market?

If you ask this, we can answer with no. You will be able to easily find coating agent products just by typing the keywords in the information search engine. You can even buy it right away in large or small quantities.

However, for those of you who are looking for certain coating agent characteristics such as being safe when used, do not remove nutrients from food, and do not harm your body cells like formalin, you may find it difficult to get it. You need references from people who have been using this coating agent for years.

If you cannot find any references, you can look for them on the website of the company that produces them. And the food products you consume like frozen French fries or fruit should also be related to the company producing the coating agent.

Use of Coating Technology

Not only food, but the coating agent is also indispensable in the process of coating and preserving other objects such as walls, electrical equipment, steel structures of buildings, water tanks, food packaging cans, concrete blocks, and vehicles. These objects require a coating formulation that best suits the nature of the object.

You may have purchased the coating agent product that you commonly find in the form of a multipurpose white powder.
However, you still have to pay attention to the coating formulation. Whether the formulation is suitable for the object to be coated. You won’t be able to coat your fence made of wood with a primer coating that is specifically used for steel structures.

So, you need to know the types of coating agents according to the basic materials such as solvents, additives, pigments, and binders.

Additives

These chemical compounds are usually added in small amounts to an object. Although it is small, it has a huge impact on the coating process. The additive coating agent includes surfactants, preservatives, anti-skinning agents, and dispersing agents.

• Surfactants. You will easily find surfactants in cleaner products, fire extinguishers, detergents, fabric softeners, laxatives, and various personal care products.
• Preservatives. We usually find preservatives in food, beverages, medicines, and cosmetics products.
• Dispersing agents are usually easy to find in wall paint products where these substances can help disperse pigments in the paint formula used. You will then get a quality look from the paint color you choose.
• The anti-skinning agent is necessary for preventing skin formation during the process of applying and storing paint. Anti-skinning agents can seal the paint bucket with a nylon filter to prevent a layer of skin from forming.

Binders

Some of the binders that are known to people, in general, are resins, alkyds, epoxy, and vinyl. You are closer enough to the binder as long as you have glue at home. Construction workers are close to cementing as a binder of concrete.

Epoxy solutions with carbonyl solvents can react with amines which are curing agents to form networks. This can be used to coat concrete which is often damaged due to several factors. Ion and water that seep into cracks or other defective pores can weaken concrete over some time.

Concrete coated with epoxy solution will increase strength to above 9.3 MPa. This layered concrete will also show excellent anti-corrosion performance. While the artists also work with resin.

They do print works with resin to some of the arts with various particular objects to make them stored for a long time in a certain condition of a room. Binder has a viscosity property where it binds between coating components.

The binder is the main component in the coating. As a coating agent, the binder must have a low enough viscosity so that it can be used with simple equipment such as a spray or brush. While the high viscosity of the binder will prevent the material from dropping. Viscosity control can be done by adding several solvents.

Solvent

The most important raw material solvent used in coatings. Solvents can be used to dissolve polymers and oligomers that will form cured finishes. This solvent binder is generally clear in color with the ability to remove lubricating oil, dirt, rust, and grease from metal surfaces and other surfaces before the coating process.

Pigment

A coating agent which gives color during the coating process plays an important role in beautifying and maintaining the corrosion of a surface. Pigments are particulate insoluble, and have opacity control, gloss control, and rheology control.

There is a white pigment that has light-scattering properties in the coating. People use white pigment a lot because of the whiteness and opacity that this pigment contributes. The white pigment form of crystalline titanium dioxide is the most commonly used.

There are also color pigments that work by absorbing certain wavelengths of visible light and scattering other wavelengths. The color pigments that are often used are green and blue based on iron oxide yellow, copper phthalocyanine, perigone orange, dihalide yellow, and iron oxide red.