The Waterborne Symposium

Abstract
Effect of Low VOC Coalescents on Film Formation, Dirt Pickup Resistance and Surfactant Leaching of Waterborne Paints
Co-authors: Robson André Pagani, Natália Freitas de Paula, Rafael Augusto Caldato, Raquel da Silva, and Silmar Balsamo Barrios

Usually, low VOC waterborne paints generate dry paint films with lower hardness and dirt pickup resistance due to the usage of high boiling point coalescents.
In this work, the effect of low VOC coalescents on latex film formation, hardness evolution, accelerated dirt pickup resistance and surfactant leaching of waterborne paints will be explored.
AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy) images of styrene-acrylic and pure acrylic latexes containing 4 wt% of different coalescents show that low VOC coalescents generated films more coalesced and smoother than standard high VOC coalescent.
A new class of low VOC coalescent generated semi-gloss paints with hardness evolution and accelerated dirt pickup resistance higher than commercial low VOC coalescents and similar to standard high VOC coalescent.
Moreover, flat paints formulated with this low VOC coalescent dried at harsh conditions presented lower surfactant leaching in comparison to the ones formulated with standard high VOC coalescent.
These results suggest that there is a correlation between surfactant leaching and film formation assessed through AFM.