LANXESS Bayferrox pigments for unique shade Eiffel Tower Brown

June 15, 2009 - PRLog -- Leverkusen – The Eiffel Tower is getting a new look for its 120th birthday. The monument, which was constructed for the 1889 World’s Fair and was originally intended to remain in place for only 20 years, is repainted every seven years. Bayferrox pigments from the specialty chemicals group LANXESS AG provide the color for the Paris trademark’s high-grade anticorrosion coating.  
The iron oxides offer maximum light and weather stability, high tinting strength and chemical resistance in addition to outstanding hiding power. To say nothing of a great price-to-performance ratio.
The order to paint the 324-meter-high, 7,300-ton steel structure every seven years is part of the legacy of the tower's builder, Gustave Eiffel. 25 painters use 1,500 brushes and rollers to apply 60 tons of anticorrosion coating over an 18-month renovation period. The new look for the 250,000 square meters of steel costs roughly EUR four million. The painting work is scheduled for completion in fall 2010.
The painters working for Stelma, the Greek company that won the contract for the project, are applying the anticorrosion system based on urethanized alkyd resin in two coats. Just like seven years ago, the Sandefjord, Norway-based coatings formulator Jotun is supplying the Mammut RQ system, which comprises a primer and a topcoat. “We are honored that our coating materials have been selected to protect this unique feat of engineering,” said Jean-Francois Ferrer, General Manager of Jotun France SAS.
Weather and other environmental factors erode the coating, thus the need for regular repainting. Only around ten of the 60 tons applied to the steel structure every seven years remain. There are currently 18 layer of paint on the Eiffel Tower. The colors range from the “Venetian Red” of the original coating through yellows to today’s Eiffel Tower Brown. “The tower has been the same color since 1968,” says Jean-Bernard Bros, President of SETE (Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel), the company that operates the tower, “and artists, photographers and all those who love the Eiffel Tower agree that it is the tower’s best color.” The understated shade, which harmonizes with the rooftops and monuments of Paris, is a blend of three different brown grades from the Bayferrox range of iron oxides. The premium pigments can be easily intermixed and are distinguished by their high quality and simple and environmentally compatible processing. According to Dr. Volker Schneider, Head of Competence Center Paint in the Business Unit Inorganic Pigments at LANXESS, “The decisive advantages of our high-performance products are the tight tolerances with respect to shade and tinting strength. This makes color reproduction when formulating paints and coatings faster, easier and more reliable; in many cases there is no need for shading work.”

Detailed information about the use of LANXESS pigments in paints and coatings is available on the website http://www.bayferrox.de/.

Leverkusen, June 10, 2009
bol (2009-00118e)


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Information for editors:
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In 2005, LANXESS was initially listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and LANXESS Chemical (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. officially started its operation. Today, LANXESS has 11 subsidiaries, 3 joint ventures and 6 R&D centers in China, with 850 employees.