Industry analysis · Resources
Grace and Evonik publish different parameters, on different scales, for different reasons. Anyone running an import-substitution programme is comparing datasheets that were never designed to be compared — here is exactly what is missing, and what to do about it.
Published · Censilcoat technical team
Quick answer
Every import-substitution guide tells you to start by comparing datasheets. That advice quietly assumes the datasheets are comparable. They are not. Grace publishes oil absorption for SYLOID® but no numerical pore volume or BET surface area; Evonik publishes BET surface area for ACEMATT® but no pore volume and no oil absorption. Neither publishes a particle-size distribution width. You cannot build a like-for-like table across the two incumbent suppliers — let alone against a challenger grade — from public data alone. This piece maps exactly what each manufacturer does and does not publish, and what that means for how you should actually run an evaluation.
Every replacement programme starts the same way. Procurement asks R&D whether the challenger grade matches the imported one. R&D pulls up two datasheets, puts them side by side, and looks for the rows to line up. It is the obvious first move, and on paper it is the responsible one.
It also does not work — not because anyone is hiding anything, but because the two incumbent suppliers in this category publish genuinely different parameter sets. Once you actually lay the documents next to each other, the rows do not line up. Not between challenger and incumbent. Between the two incumbents.
Grace's Technical Information for SYLOID® matting agents (DOC062, 2021) contains a product properties table for the EMEA region. For each grade it gives four things: average particle size in μm, surface treatment, pH, and oil absorption in g/100 g. Packaging size too. That is the table.
| Grade | Avg. particle size | Surface treatment | pH | Oil absorption | Bag |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SYLOID® ED 2 | 4.5 μm | none | 7.0 | 320 g/100g | 10 kg |
| SYLOID® ED 3 | 6.0 μm | none | 7.0 | 320 g/100g | 15 kg |
| SYLOID® ED 5 | 9.0 μm | none | 7.0 | 320 g/100g | 15 kg |
| SYLOID® ED 30 | 5.5 μm | organic | 7.0 | 300 g/100g | 15 kg |
| SYLOID® ED 40 | 7.0 μm | organic | 7.0 | 300 g/100g | 15 kg |
| SYLOID® ED 44 | 7.0 μm | organic | 3.0 | 300 g/100g | 15 kg |
| SYLOID® ED 50 | 8.5 μm | organic | 7.0 | 300 g/100g | 15 kg |
| SYLOID® ED 80 | 11.5 μm | organic | 7.0 | 300 g/100g | 15 kg |
Selected SYLOID® ED grades. Source: W. R. Grace & Co. — SYLOID® Matting Agents for Coatings and Printing Inks, Technical Information, Product Properties EMEA Region, DOC062 (© 2021).
Two things are worth noticing before we get to what is absent. First, the particle size is a single average value, not a range. SYLOID® ED 30 is listed at 5.5 μm — not 5.3–5.7, not ±0.3. A single number tells you where the distribution sits but nothing about how wide it is, and distribution width is precisely what governs whether a clearcoat stays water-white or goes hazy on a dark panel.
Second, the ED series splits cleanly into untreated and organically treated grades. ED 2, ED 3 and ED 5 are listed as untreated. ED 30, ED 40, ED 50 and ED 80 carry an organic treatment. If you are replacing an untreated grade with a wax-modified one, or the reverse, you are changing the parameter that governs anti-settling and surface touch — and the datasheet will not warn you, because the datasheet is not comparing anything.
Pore volume does not appear as a number anywhere in that table. Neither does BET surface area.
Pore volume is not a minor omission. It is one of the three parameters that decide how a matting agent behaves: particle size sets the gloss–clarity–touch triangle, surface treatment governs settling and touch, and pore volume trades matting efficiency against viscosity. A high-pore-volume grade mattes harder at a lower loading but drinks binder and pushes viscosity up. That trade-off is the whole formulating decision, and it is the one number you cannot read off the page.
Grace does present pore volume — but as a comparison chart, not a table. Grades are plotted in bands against tiers of roughly 2.0, 1.8, 1.6 and 1.2 mL/g, cross-referenced with a qualitative matting-efficiency scale reading “outstanding”, “very high” and “high”. You can tell which band a grade sits in. You cannot read a specific value off it — where a grade sits inside its band is not stated — and you certainly cannot put it in a cell next to a challenger's published range.
Oil absorption is often treated as a stand-in for pore volume, and it is not a bad one — but it is a different measurement answering a different question. Substituting one for the other in a comparison table is exactly the kind of quiet approximation that makes a bench trial fail for reasons nobody can reconstruct afterwards.
Now put Evonik's technical data sheet for ACEMATT® TS 100 next to it. TS 100 is published at a d50 of 9.5 μm, a specific surface area of 250 m²/g (N₂), pH 6.5, a grindometer value of 40 μm, and a recommended addition level of 1.5 – 4.5% as supplied on total formulation.
So Evonik gives you BET surface area, which Grace does not. Evonik does not give you oil absorption, which Grace does. Neither gives you a numerical pore volume. Neither gives you a distribution width.
Line the two up and the overlap is thin: particle size and pH. Everything else is published by one supplier and not the other. If your evaluation depends on comparing pore structure across an ACEMATT® grade and a SYLOID® grade — a completely ordinary thing to want to do — the public data will not carry you there.
Evonik's own TDS describes ACEMATT® TS 100 as an untreated thermal silica — thermal, meaning pyrogenic. It is made by a fundamentally different route from precipitated silica: burned rather than precipitated from solution, with a different aggregate structure as a result.
This is not a footnote. A great deal of “alternative to TS 100” material online silently compares it against precipitated grades without ever noting that the manufacturing route differs. The two can absolutely land the same finish — matching the film is the actual goal, not matching the process — but a formulator who does not know they are switching routes will misread whatever the bench trial does next. Anyone selling you a replacement should tell you this before you run the trial, not after.
Here is the one that surprises people. On Grace's own product line page, the ED series is listed under solvent-based wood coating systems. Grace's stated recommendation for waterborne systems is a different set of products entirely: SYLOID® AQ silica series, SYLOID® W silica series, SYLOID® 7000 silica. The solvent-based recommendation is SYLOID® ED and C Silica Series.
Meanwhile, across Southeast Asia, ED 30 is running in waterborne wood clearcoats every day. It is a well-regarded grade, it is available, distributors stock it, and formulators have made it work. None of that is wrong. But it does mean a large number of plants are benchmarking their waterborne systems against a grade that its own manufacturer positions for solventborne — and then judging challenger grades by how closely they match it.
That is worth sitting with for a moment. If the reference point was never optimised for your system, “matches the reference exactly” is not automatically the right target. It is a target inherited from supply-chain habit rather than from formulation logic. The question worth asking is not only whether a grade matches ED 30, but whether matching ED 30 is what your film actually needs.
One more, smaller but instructive. Grade designations circulate in this industry that do not appear in the manufacturer's published range. Grace's EMEA product line, per DOC062, lists ED 2, ED 3, ED 5, ED 30, ED 40, ED 44, ED 50, ED 52, ED 56 and ED 80. Purchase orders and drum labels in the field do not always match that list — regional designations, discontinued grades and distributor shorthand all persist for years after the paperwork moves on.
If you are asking a supplier to match a grade, and neither of you can point to a published datasheet for it, then whatever “1:1” means in that conversation, it does not mean datasheet parity. It means somebody is working from memory. Worth knowing which.
None of this means datasheets are useless. It means they are a starting point that runs out earlier than most people expect, and knowing where it runs out is the difference between a clean evaluation and a mystery.
Three practical consequences. First, ask for what is not published. A supplier who cannot state pore volume and BET surface area as numbers, with a controlled specification behind them, is asking you to trust a band on a chart. That question alone separates suppliers quickly.
Second, treat the incumbent's datasheet as a description, not a target. You are not trying to reproduce a number on a page. You are trying to reproduce a film: gloss at 60° and 85°, clarity on your darkest panel, touch, and can stability after storage. Those are measurable on your own line, in your own system, in about a week.
Third, run the trial at identical dosage first. Change one variable. If the challenger lands short, adjust dosage within a narrow band before you conclude anything about the grade. Most “the replacement failed” stories turn out to be a dosage conversation that never happened.
The parameters that decide the outcome are knowable. They are just not all on the page you were handed.
Because Grace and Evonik publish different parameters. Grace's SYLOID® product properties table gives average particle size, surface treatment, pH and oil absorption — but no numerical pore volume or BET surface area. Evonik's ACEMATT® TS 100 TDS gives d50, BET surface area, pH and grindometer value — but no oil absorption and no pore volume. The overlap is particle size and pH.
As a comparison chart rather than a table. Grades are plotted in bands against tiers of roughly 2.0, 1.6, 1.8 and 1.2 mL/g, cross-referenced with a qualitative matting-efficiency scale. You can identify a grade's band; you cannot read a specific value.
No. It is a reasonable proxy but a different measurement answering a different question. Substituting one for the other in a comparison table introduces an approximation that is hard to trace back if a bench trial then behaves unexpectedly.
Availability, distributor stock and accumulated formulating experience. Grace's own stated recommendation for waterborne systems is the AQ, W and 7000 series; the ED and C series are listed for solvent-based wood coatings. ED 30 nevertheless performs in waterborne systems and is widely used across Southeast Asia. It does mean the benchmark many plants measure against was not positioned for their system.
No. Evonik's TDS describes it as an untreated thermal silica — thermal meaning pyrogenic, a different manufacturing route from precipitated silica. Comparisons against precipitated grades can be perfectly valid, since the target is the film rather than the process, but the route difference should be stated before a trial rather than discovered during one.
Numerical pore volume and BET surface area with a controlled specification behind them, the distribution width rather than a single average particle size, and the surface treatment type per grade. Then run a bench trial at your current dosage and judge the film: gloss at 60° and 85°, clarity on your darkest panel, touch, and can stability after storage.
Figures attributed to Grace and Evonik are reproduced from the documents cited above and were current on the publication date; manufacturers may revise specifications without notice. Readers should verify against the current datasheet for their region before making a formulating decision.
Every Censil grade is published with pore volume (1.6 – 1.8 mL/g) and surface area (250 – 280 m²/g) as controlled specification, not as a band on a chart. Send your resin system, target gloss and the grade you use today — we'll ship a free 2 kg sample with a 1:1 benchmark sheet.
Request a Free 2 kg SampleACEMATT® is a registered trademark of Evonik Industries AG. SYLOID® and GRACE® are registered trademarks of W. R. Grace & Co.-Conn. Censilcoat is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Evonik or W. R. Grace. Trademarks are used solely to identify the products discussed, for comparison and commentary purposes.