Ultrasound for Dispersing and Grinding: Paint & Pigments
Power ultrasound is well known for its intense and precisely controllable milling and dispersing effects. This makes ultrasonic homogenizers ideal for the production of pigment paste and paint formulations. Industrial ultrasonicators provide a highly uniform particle size distribution in the micron- and nano-range. Process large volume streams of high viscosities with Hielscher sonicators to achieve homogeneous wetting, dispersing, deagglomeration and milling!
Paint Manufacturing with Ultrasound
Improve your Paints, Colors and Coatings with Sonication:
- Formulation: Whether high viscosities, high particle loads, aqueous- or solvent-based – with Hielscher industrial inline ultrasonicators you can process any formulation.
- Micron- and Nano-Size: The high shear forces generated by acoustic cavitation reduce particles to minute particle diameters and provide an uniform dispersion. Adjusting ultrasonication parameters to your particle and formulation requirements allow for a reliable production of nano-sized pigments.
- Optical Properties: To obtain the correct optical properties, pigment particle size have to be controlled. Usually, opacity correlates with particle size: the finer the particle size, the more opacity. For example, TiO2 is specifically processed to a particle size of 0.20 to 0.3 micron, which is approximately the equivalent to one-half the wavelength of light. Ultrasonication reduces the TiO2 pigments to their optimum size, so that ultimate hiding is obtained.
- High-Performance Particles: Smaller particle sizes result in greater colour saturation, colour consistency and stability. The intense, yet precisely controllable ultrasound forces allow for producing modified and functionalized nano-particles, such as coated particles, SWNTs, MWCNTs and core-shell particles. Such particles show unique characteristics and elevate paint or coating formulations to a new level of quality and functionality (e.g. UV resistance, scratch resistance, strength, adhesiveness, high heat resistance, infrared and solar reflectivity).
- Modified Particles: Surface modified pigments have very low viscosity at high pigment loadings (2.5cP at 10% solids), superior suspension stability and high purity. Ultrasonically assisted particle functionalization makes it simple to synthesize high-performance pigments with special characteristics.
- final formulations
- master batches of pigment paste
- refining particles after conventional milling

Pigment pastes are milled and dispersed using ultrasound cavitation and high-shear forces show a significant size reduction and uniform distribution. The plot above shows the increasing size reduction at increasing ultrasonic energy.
For the production of paint, the components such as pigments, binders/ film formers, diluents/ solvents, resins, fillers and additives have to mixed together into a homogeneous formulation. Pigments are the determining component that gives paint its color. The most important white pigment is TiO2, which needs to be milled to an optimum particle size between 0.2 and 0.3 microns in diameter to show the desired grade of whiteness, brightness, opacity and a very high refractive index. The ultrasonic shear forces provide a very effective and energy-effective deagglomeration and dispersion of TiO2 particles (see image below).

TEM of ultrasonically dispersed TiO2 nanoparticle suspension with different solid concentrations. Sonication was performed using the ultrasonicator UIP1000hdT
Left: ultrasonic energy input 1.8 × 105 J/L – Right: ultrasonic energy input 5.4 × 105 J/L
(Study and images: ©Fasaki et al., 2012)
Ultrasonic milling and dispersing enhance the paint quality by improving its color strength, density, fineness of grinding, dispersion and rheology.
Ultrasonic Dispersing & Grinding Conditions
The quality of paints and coatings relies on the homogenous dispersion of the pigments. Hielscher Ultrasonics supplies effective milling and grinding equipment for paint dispersion, especially for for formulations with high pigment loads. The mechanism of ultrasonic dispersers for milling, grinding, deagglomeration and dispersion applications is mainly based on the shear principle generated by ultrasonic cavitation. The cavitational shear forces necessary for the dissociation of the particles are produced by high pressure differences, local hot spots and liquid jets, which results in the particle break-up by inter-particle collision.
Industrial ultrasonic dispersers such as the UIP16000hdT with 16,000 watts per ultrasonic probe have the capacity to process high volume streams of paints and coatings.

Ultrasonic Processing: 7x UIP1000hdT

Sonicated chalk paint on the grindometer demonstrates the perfectly uniform deagglomeration and particle size distribution of the pigments
Dispersion of Nanoparticles
Ultrasonic grinding and dispersing is often the only method to process nano-particles efficiently in order to obtain sinlge-dispersed primary particles. A small primary particle size results in a large surface area and correlates with the expression of unique particle characteristics and functionalities. At the same time, a smaller particle size is associated with a high surface energy for more severe aggregation and reactivity, so that the intense ultrasonic dispersing forces are required to disperse the nano particles homogeneously into the formulation.
Furthermore, an ultrasonic surface treatment can modify the nano particles which leads to improved dispersibility, dispersion stability, hydrophobicity and other features.
Researchers have recommended the ultrasonic dispersion method for nano particles as preferred solution, “because the material dispersed by the ultrasonic method is much purer than that produced by bead milling.” [Kim et al. 2010].

The ultrasonic dispersion technique has many advantages in comparison with traditional milling technologies such as three-roll, ball or media mills.
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Literature / References
- FactSheet Ultrasonic Inkjet Dispersion – Hielscher Ultrasonics
- I. Fasaki, K. Siamos, M. Arin, P. Lommens, I. Van Driessche, S.C. Hopkins, B.A. Glowacki, I. Arabatzis (2012): Ultrasound assisted preparation of stable water-based nanocrystalline TiO2 suspensions for photocatalytic applications of inkjet-printed films. Applied Catalysis A: General, Volumes 411–412, 2012. 60-69.
- Badgujar, N.P.; Bhoge, Y.E.; Deshpande, T.D.; Bhanvase, B.A.; Gogate, P.R.; Sonawane, S.H.; Kulkarni, R.D. (2015): Ultrasound assisted organic pigment dispersion: advantages of ultrasound method over conventional method. Pigment & Resin Technology, Vol. 44 No. 4, 2015. 214-223.
- Adam K. Budniak, Niall A. Killilea, Szymon J. Zelewski, Mykhailo Sytnyk, Yaron Kauffmann, Yaron Amouyal, Robert Kudrawiec, Wolfgang Heiss, Efrat Lifshitz (2020): Exfoliated CrPS4 with Promising Photoconductivity. Small Vol.16, Issue 1. January 9, 2020.
- Kim, Moojoon; Kim, Jungsoon; Jo, Misun; Ha, Kanglyeo (2010): Dispersion effect of nano particle according to ultrasound exposure by using focused ultrasonic field. Proceedings of Symposium on Ultrasonic Electronics 6-8 December, 2010. 31, 2010. 549-550.
- Pekarovicov, Alexandra; Pekarovic, Jan (2009): Emerging Pigment Dispersion Technologies. Industry insight Pira International 2009.
Facts Worth Knowing
Ultrasonic tissue homogenizers are often referred to as probe sonicator/ sonificator, sonic lyser, ultrasound disruptor, ultrasonic grinder, sono-ruptor, sonifier, sonic dismembrator, cell disrupter, ultrasonic disperser, emulsifier or dissolver. The different terms result from the various applications that can be fulfilled by sonication.

Hielscher Ultrasonics manufactures high-performance ultrasonic homogenizers from lab to industrial size.