Greener Paints
Although we don’t use much paint, we would like to do our part for the environment by using greener paints such as water-based in our plant.
Q. My brother and I own a small manufacturing company here in the Midwest. We manufacture a line of farm implements and farm machine attachments. These products are cleaned by hand and painted by brush because we don’t produce enough parts to support a paint line. Although we don’t use much paint, we would like to do our part for the environment by using greener paints such as water-based in our plant. We quit using lead based paints when we heard that the regulators wanted them off the market. Now we want to take the next step and join the crowd going greener. What paints do you recommend? G.L.
A. Join the crowd, G.L. It has been decades since the paint industry embarked on their “Get the Lead Out” campaign for trade sales paint and industrial users were prohibited from using lead containing paints in their plants. Since then there are other corrosion-inhibiting pigments available as replacements for lead in industrial paint formulations.
Since you are applying paints by brushing, you are already greener than other manufacturers using spray guns. You don’t have to worry about increasing your transfer efficiency (TE) because application by brushing is nearly 100%.
Greener (environmentally safe) paints available today come in the form of waterborne, high solids, and some two-component materials. Use of these coatings will reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Owing to their limited pot life, using the two-component paints may cause problems since you apply your paints by brushing. I don’t make specific paint company product recommendations in Painting Clinic. Therefore, I suggest you ask your paint supplier for specific product recommendations.
Related Content
-
EPA Readying Fall Nationwide PFAS Survey of Metal Finishing Industry to Inform New Water Discharge Rule
NASF continues discussions with US EPA on the agency’s plans for a nationwide survey of the metal finishing industry on its use of PFAS. NASF plans to review the draft survey and provide feedback to the agency prior to its distribution. Surveys will likely go to a wide range of job shop and captive operations and are scheduled to be sent out in the fall.
-
NASF/AESF Foundation Research Project #122: Electrochemical Approaches to Treatment of PFAS in Plating Wastewater - 7th Quarterly Report
The NASF-AESF Foundation Research Board has selected a project on addressing the problem of PFAS and related chemicals in plating wastewater streams, studying PFAS destruction via electrooxidation and electrocoagulation. Our last report described the results from experiments of EO with a Magnéli phase Ti4O7 anode on the degradation of eight perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs). In this seven quarter report, we describe work to further explore how the degradation of different PFAAs are related to their molecular structures.
-
NASF/AESF Foundation Research Project #120: Electrochemical Destruction of Perfluorooctanesulfonate in Electroplating Wastewaters – 7th & 8th Quarter Report
This NASF-AESF Foundation research project report covers the seventh and eighth quarters of project work (October 2021-March 2022) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The major activities reported are: (1) to investigate 6:2 FTS oxidation, a common replacement compound for PFOS in the electroplating industry, and (2) PFAS oxidation in both a wastewater sample procured from an electroplating facility and in synthetic solutions.