Highly Weatherable Low-VOC Fluoropolymer Coatings for Building Restoration

By Kurt Wood, Ron Partridge, Ravi Gupta

Highly weatherable, 70% PVDF fluorocarbon finishes are among the most popular coatings for exterior architectural metal, but when a need arises to make repairs or change colors, the options for restoration paints are often rather limited. Nonfluorocarbon restoration paints will not match the original PVDF finish in terms of color stability.

Many of the fluorocarbon restoration paint options can have their own drawbacks, such as high VOC, adhesion issues over PVDF finishes, and potlife/material handling issues for systems which are two-component. We present here new studies to adapt PVDF-acrylic hybrid latex technology to the needs of the building restoration market.

New one-pack formulations achieve outstanding weatherability and excellent wet and dry adhesion to new and aged PVDF finishes, at VOC levels in the 100 g/L range. Second generation latex materials under development are showing similar adhesion properties, in formulations meeting West Coast 50 g/L VOC requirements.