Oxazolidines as Latent Curing Agents

Monday, January 16, 2012

What makes your paint more stable

After getting my house painted last year, I went into depression. Really... it was that bad. No, I don’t mean the paint was bad but what I want to imply is that the trauma after seeing your newly painted house appear ghastly right after a small thunder shower was depressing. I did not know what to do. I had spent almost a month and half my savings for the year on getting the paint job done but to my misfortune all the efforts went down the drain.

I was constantly intriguied by this question as to why me and what was wrong. I asked the dealer and found out about the paint specifications, all seemed normal on that front. Then I asked an architect friend of mine about any problem with the raw material I used while building my house, after some deliberation and inspection, my friend told me there was no problem in the way my house was built. Then what? I asked but got no answers in return.

One fine day, this same architect friend of mine called me up and asked if it had rained after i got my house painted? I replied in affirmative and reinstated that it was a mild shower nothing like the torrential rains this part of the state sees. And bang I had the answer. Even in the worst of my dreams I could not think that t will be a chemical called oxazolidines that will be responsible for the disaster. Wait... don’t get me wrong. I am not blaming it on the presence of the chemical but the main problem was the absence of the chemical oxazolidines in the paint polyurethane.

Oxazolidines are chemical particles that consist of a range of mono and bis-oxazolidines that hydrolyse on being exposed to moisture yielding reactive amine and hydroxyl functionalities. Therefore, they protect your paint from wearing out in case of a shower, excessive sunlight or other problems. Oxazolidines, when mixed in the paint, keep it together and stable. It is therefore mandatory for all paint dealers to get this chemical component and mix it in the paint in the required proportion.

Unfortunately, my paint dealer was not aware of this and neither did I know about it. However, this year when I got my house re-painted I ensured that I had done my homework right and made sure that the paint dealer had mixed the right amount of oxazolidines in the solution. After all, it always better to be safe than sorry!

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