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 Product Introduction



ASAHI GUARD® Product Introduction
AsahiGuard® offers the outstanding features of a fluorinated water and oil repellent finishing agent. AGC began distributing AsahiGuard® products for textiles and paper in 1971 and 1978 respectively. Its high performance over the past 35 years has made it the trusted brand it is today.

The fluorinated water and oil repellent agent, AsahiGuard®, is sold in more than 30 countries. Customers have used AsahiGuard® products as finishing agents not only for textiles, but also for paper, non-woven fabrics and leather. AsahiGuard® offers the features of a fluorinated water and oil repellent finishing agent that cannot be obtained with the use of paraffin or silicone.

AGC is committed to meet the desire for future generation products. AGC launched the AsahiGuard® E-SERIES in February 2006 which are products offering the same high performance characteristics as the existing product line, but without any perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), longer chain length-perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs) or their precursors.

Fluorotelomer-based water and oil repelling agents have been on the market for over 40 years and it is true that they enhance and enrich the way we live.
However it did become common knowledge in about the year 2000 that perfluorooctane carboxylate (PFOA) and similar products with longer carbon chain lengths were almost everywhere in the environment, including in human blood, though at very low levels. The fact that these chemicals are persistent and widespread in the environment, including in human blood, has raised concerns among regulators and resulted in the precautionary approach of seeking a reduction in environmental loadings of these chemicals and their precursors or potential precursors. In line with this the fluoropolymer and telomer producers have been voluntarily reducing environmental releases and the product content of PFCAs and their precursors. By using advanced fluorine chemistry technologies, AGC developed the AsahiGuard® E-SERIES which allows the ‘lifestyle’ user benefits that come from using AsahiGuard® whilst at the same time meet the EPA's environmental goals AsahiGuard® E-SERIES products do not contain PFOA, longer chain length PFCAs or their precursors.

PFOA:
PFOA is used as a polymerisation aid in the production of fluorinated resins and is contained in fluorinated water and oil repellant agents in trace amounts. PFOA has been detected at very low levels in wildlife, human blood and the environment.

Longer chain length PFCAs:
These are chemicals with a similar structure to PFOA with a larger number of carbon atoms. For example, perfluoro nonanoic acid with carbon number 9 or perfluoro decanoic acid with carbon number 10 is included.

Precursor:
A chemical that can break down to form another chemical. For example, some residual monomer chemicals from the telomer manufacturing process, such as telomer alcohols and telomer iodides, are PFOA precursors because they may remain in the final product and can break down into PFOA.