Shepherd Color Featured in September 2026 Edition of Compounding World

Suppliers Serve Up Colouring and Marking Solutions

In the latest issue of Compounding World, Laura Florez reports on the most recent developments in colour as it pertains to sustainability and durability while integrating function and enhancing performance. Several companies are sourced, including The Shepherd Color Company.

Noted from Mark Ryan, Product & Marketing Manager at Shepherd Color, “The future is colour and function. Infrared properties for reduced solar heat build-up in building products, to the sorting of dark color plastics in recycling streams. Black pigments that have been used in engineering polymers for decades can now be specifically engineered to support Laser Direct Structuring (LDS), enabling conductive pathways to be integrated directly into plastic components. This technology allows antennas and electronic circuits to be incorporated into molded plastic parts.”

Chromatic and Durable Colors

Covered in the article are high heat stable products such as our NTP Yellow and RTZ Orange pigments. is a highly-engineered inorganic pigment, based on Niobium Tin Pyrochlore, designed to bridge the longstanding gap between chromaticity and durability. NTP Yellow 10P150  is chemically inert, non-migratory, and highly resistant to heat, UV exposure, and chemical attack. Its ability to combine strong chromaticity with excellent opacity and durability makes it a unique solution for coatings, plastics, and other high-performance applications where color retention and coverage are critical.

Complementing this mid-shade yellow is Shepherd Color’s RTZ Orange technology, available as Orange 10P340 for plastics and Orange 10C341 for coatings. Based on Rutile Tin Zinc chemistry, these pigments extend the same performance balance into the orange-red region of the color space. Rutile tin zinc pigments are known for their excellent opacity, lightfastness, and resistance to environmental degradation, making them well-suited for demanding outdoor applications. RTZ Orange pigments provide a chromatic orange with strong redness, offering formulators a powerful tool for adjusting “a*” values in color matches. At the same time, they maintain the core benefits of complex inorganic pigments, including exceptional weatherability, heat stability, and chemical resistance.

Read the article here.