Chelating ligands as powerful additives to manganese driers for solvent-borne and water-borne alkyd paints

Time-resolved FTIR, size-exclusion chromatography and GC-MS have been used in a search to new environmentally acceptable driers, based on manganese, for alkyd paints. By using the model substrate ethyl linoleate (EL) it was found that the two chelating ligands 2-aminomethylpyridine (amp) and 2-hydroxymethylpyridine (hmp) are better than, or at least comparable with 2,2'-bipyridine in promoting the drying capability of manganese 2-ethythexanoate. An EL-water emulsion was used as a model for water-borne alkyd paints; the results of time-resolved FTIR experiments revealed that amp is more suitable than hmp for application in emulsion paints. The drying performance of manganese salts in combination with amp or hmp in actual alkyd paint systems is in reasonable agreement with the findings from our model systems. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.