There are approximately 700 million gallons of house paint sold in the United States each year. From the 1940's to today the amount of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) typically found in an architectural paint (and released into the environment) has been reduced from over 400g/L to often less than 50 or even 5 g/L. The drive for water based �near 0� VOC architectural paints with ever lower odor is driven by both environmentally and health conscious consumers as well businesses that want to minimize down-time. While consumers may correlate reduced VOC levels with a parallel odor reduction this may not be the case. Small quantities of malodorants with a low odor threshold can have a large impact on a paint's odor profile. One method to address this group of low quantity but high odor impact materials would be to distill them out; however, this would require a large amount of energy to remove the very small amount of contaminate from the huge volumes of paint components in question. A number of the malodorants in the headspace of a typical latex paint have been identified and categorized by odor potency and functional group. The structure of the malodorants often has similar local structure and functional groups as many of the formulation materials which are critical to paint performance. Any method to reduce the undesirable materials must be selective as well as time and cost effective. By employing commercially available biocatalysts the most impactful classes of malodorants were cost (and energy) effectively mitigated without damaging other paint components. The selection of biocatalysts and conditions which achieved this balance will be discussed.

Practical and robust biocatalytic routes to low odor architectural coatings

248th National Meeting (2014)

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