Wood Coatings – New Technology Restores Life to Waterborne Alkyds for Architectural Applications

By Cynthia Challener

Like most sectors of the paint and coatings industry, the wood coatings segment has been challenged over the past several years by several evolving market conditions and regulatory requirements. Today resin producers face rising raw material and energy costs and, in some cases, raw material related shortages of supply. The introduction of new substrates in the architectural market over the past 10 years has also been a key issue for resin manufacturers.

They have responded by developing new technologies that enable formulators to achieve the desired level of performance and functionality demanded by their customers, while meeting increasingly restrictive limits on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). The wood coatings segment includes a very broad spectrum of substrates, resin types, and end use applications.

Paints and coatings for wood include factory, contractor, and consumer applied finishes that can serve a purely decorative function and/ or provide significant resistance and protective properties. They are applied to both interior and exterior surfaces on decks, homes, floors, and furniture.

All types of resins are used for wood coatings. For typical OEM wood finishing situations, wood coatings include nitrocellulose lacquers, conversion varnishes, pre-cat lacquers, ultraviolet (UV) coats, sealers, and stains. In the architectural segment, water- and solventborne “house” paints are used as well as lacquers, urethane varnishes, exterior clear wood finishes and, of course, interior and exterior wood stains.

Additionally, millwork or factory applied architectural coatings include water and solventborne primers, sealers, topcoats, and stains. UV coatings remain dominant for factory-finished wood flooring because of their ideal combination of coating performance and process efficiency. Both UV waterborne technology and 100% solids UV coatings are being used more for kitchen cabinets as well.

Architectural coatings are currently dominated by waterborne acrylic systems. Industrial furniture coatings are largely based on conventional technologies like acid catalyzed conversion varnishes and nitrocellulose lacquers. Waterborne core-shell alkyd emulsions are a new and emerging technology for OEM stains and are expected to grow in this market segment.