KEIMFARBEN GMBH is a medium-sized company based in

Diedorf Diedorf is a municipality in the district of Augsburg, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated on the river Schmutter, 9 km west of Augsburg city centre. Geography The municipality of Diedorf consists of the market town A market town is ...

near

Augsburg Augsburg ( , ; ; ) is a city in the Bavaria, Bavarian part of Swabia, Germany, around west of the Bavarian capital Munich. It is a College town, university town and the regional seat of the Swabia (administrative region), Swabia with a well ...

. It belongs to the Leonhard Moll AG Group and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of silicate paints. Buildings such as the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

Mariinskyi Palace The Mariinskyi Palace () is the official residence of the president of Ukraine. The Elizabethan baroque palace is sited on the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kyiv, Ukraine, adjoining the Neoclassical architecture, neo-classical Verkhovna Rada ...

Buckingham Palace Buckingham Palace () is a royal official residence, residence in London, and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the United Kingdom. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and r ...

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue Performing arts center, performing arts centre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive b ...

, and the

Bolshoi Theatre The Bolshoi Theatre ( rus, Большо́й теа́тр, r=Bol'shoy teatr, p=bɐlʲˈʂoj tʲɪˈat(ə)r, t=Grand Theater) is a historic opera house in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové. Before the October Revolutio ...

are painted with Keimfarben paints. Company founder Adolf Wilhelm Keim is seen as the inventor of silicate paints (mineral paints), which revolutionised the builders' and painters' trade at the end of the 19th century.

History

The reign of

King Ludwig I of Bavaria Ludwig I or Louis I (; 25 August 1786 – 29 February 1868) was King of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states. When he was crown prince, he was involved in the Napoleonic Wars. As king, he encouraged Bavaria's indu ...

was a time of intensive research into

water glass Sodium silicate is a generic name for chemical compounds with the formula or ·, such as sodium metasilicate (), sodium orthosilicate (), and sodium pyrosilicate (). The anions are often polymeric. These compounds are generally colorless transp ...

(potassium silicate). The king loved the colorful lime frescoes in North Italy and longed to enjoy the typically splendid colors produced by lime paints in his own kingdom. But the harsh German climate was not suitable for the technique used in Italy. Eventually, the skilled craftsman and researcher Adolf Wilhelm Keim succeeded in mixing liquid water glass and mineral color pigments to create a paint that could withstand the climate north of the Alps while at the same time offering brilliant colors. The paint's durability results from the chemical bond formed by the binding agent with the substrate (silification). Keim obtained a patent for his mineral paints in 1878, thus laying the foundation stone for today's company KEIMFARBEN GMBH. The first production site was near to the limestone quarry in Offenstetten (which belongs to

Abensberg Abensberg () is a town in the Lower Bavarian Districts of Germany, district of Kelheim (district), Kelheim, in Bavaria, Germany, lying around southwest of Regensburg, east of Ingolstadt, northwest of Landshut and north of Munich. It is situa ...

today) in Lower Bavaria.

Group structure

Headquarters in Diedorf Subsidiary in Alteno Keimfarben has two German sites in

(headquarters) and Alteno/Luckau and altogether eleven foreign subsidiaries in Europe (Austria, Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Poland, the Czech Republic) and the United States. Authorised dealers are responsible for sales in countries where Keimfarben does not have its own subsidiary (Australia, Canada, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Russia). On 6 September 2012, KEIMFARBEN GMBH & Co KG changed its legal form and now operates under the name of "KEIMFARBEN GMBH".

Product range

Keim laid the foundation for the success of Keimfarben in 1878 with KEIM Purkristalat, a two-component pure silicate paint. The second generation of Keim paints followed in 1962 with Keim Granital, the first silicate emulsion paint; in contrast to Purkristalat, this is a one-component paint which makes it easier to apply. In 2002, Keimfarben then launched Keim Soldalit, a sol-silicate or colloidal silicate paint (binding agent: colloidal silica and water glass), which makes it much easier to apply silicate paints so that they are suitable for universal use. Keimfarben produces paint systems for external and internal use, mineral renders and fillers, natural stone repair systems and thermal insulation composite systems, together with concrete repair and surface protection systems. A new item in the product range is silicate paint for wooden substrates. {{Authority control Paint manufacturers Companies based in Bavaria Companies established in 1878 German brands