Silicate paint turns to stone with the wall.

An organic facade paint — acrylic, for example — bonds to the wall by adhesion: a polymer film lies on top of the surface and holds on. Sun, heat, and the wet-dry cycle eventually break that bond, and the film chalks, fades, and peels. A silicate paint bonds by chemistry instead. The potassium-silicate binder reacts with the mineral surface, forming an insoluble crystalline network that is continuous with the substrate — the paint silicifies into the wall. There is no separate film to lose adhesion, because there is no separate film.

Because the binder is inorganic and the pigments are mineral, ultraviolet light has nothing organic to degrade. Silicate facades hold their colour for decades and do not chalk; the surface ages by gentle erosion rather than by film failure. The same inorganic chemistry makes the coating non-combustible — there is no plastic film to burn.

The cured surface remains highly vapour-permeable, with an Sd value around 0.01 m on the ProfiSol topcoat. Moisture that reaches the wall can leave through the coating rather than building up behind it, so the freeze-thaw and monsoon stresses that blister film paints have far less to act on. Durability, colour stability, and breathability all come from the one decision to bind with silicate rather than polymer.

Few climates test an exterior wall paint as hard as India’s: tropical UV well above European norms, three months of monsoon saturation, and a dry season that pulls the moisture back out. Organic facade paints fade, chalk, and peel quickly under that load, which is why so many Indian buildings are on a short repaint cycle. A silicate paint answers each stress directly — the mineral binder and mineral pigment shrug off UV, and the vapour-permeable surface lets the wall dry instead of blistering.

Two LEINOS lines cover the two real-world starting points. ProfiSol (612/613) is the sol-silicate system for sound mineral facades — plaster, cement render, and mineral substrates — where a true silicate bond can form directly. UniverSil (614/615) is the silicate system that mineralises facades already coated in synthetic resin paint or built as WDVS/ETICS insulation systems, where a pure silicate cannot bond on its own. Between them they cover both a new mineral facade and the repaint of an existing apartment block.

Both lines are facade paints, and they are only half of what silicate does. The same binder is also made up as an interior wall paint — the section below covers that side.

Silicate is not only a facade material. Indoors the identical chemistry is applied to plaster instead of render, and the properties that matter change with it: breathability keeps an old lime wall drying, and the alkaline mineral surface (pH approx. 11) leaves mould, algae, and fungi no organic food source — protection that comes from the coat itself rather than from an added biocide, so it does not wash out.

LEINOS 690 Silicate Paint is that interior product — a dispersion-silicate wall and ceiling paint with an Sd value of approximately 0.01 m and wet-scrub resistance to DIN EN 13300 Class 2, which is what lets one coating serve both century-old lime plaster and a high-traffic modern interior. It is primed on raw plaster, gypsum plaster, and gypsum board with LEINOS 621 Silicate Primer, and it cannot be applied over existing latex or lacquer coatings — the silicate needs an absorbent mineral surface to bond into.

That completes the mineral interior family. Clay buffers room humidity, lime gives the heritage chalky finish and carbonates as it cures, silicate stays open-pore while standing up to washing. All of them share one principle: bind with minerals, keep the surface open-pore, and let the wall behave like the mineral it is.