2023
Increasing Demand for Soy in Coatings through the Use of Commercially-Available Materials
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Contributor/Checkoff:
United Soybean Board
Category:
Industrial
Keywords:
CoatingsIndustrial UsesIndustry outreach
Parent Project:
This is the first year of this project.
Lead Principal Investigator:
Debora Hense, Stonebridge Coatings Laboratory, Inc.
Co-Principal Investigators:
Project Code:
23-106-D-A-1-A
Contributing Organization (Checkoff):
United Soybean Board
$264,800
Institution Funded:
Stonebridge Coatings Laboratory, Inc.
$264,800
Brief Project Summary:
Soy products would be acquired along with their petrochemical counterparts, formulated into coatings, tested for critical performance properties, optimized for performance and results shared. Stonebridge will provide printed reports and starting point paint formulations to suppliers who would then use them as educational and sales tools when approaching paint manufacturers. Additionally, the same studies would be published in the paint and coatings trade journals and presented at regional and national trade shows. The work would consist of a variety of raw materials, including soy-based resins, soy solvents and soy additives used in water-based and solvent-based coatings compared to non-soy materials.
Information And Results
Project Summary

Project Objectives

Project Deliverables

Progress Of Work

Final Project Results

In the Fall of 2022, Stonebridge conducted a survey of commercially-available, soy-based raw materials for the paint and coatings market and identified 20 different materials. These included resins, coalescing agents, solvents and pigment dispersants. Based on the materials available, 5 main areas of interest were identified as target applications for soy material testing in coating formulations: A – Soy Coalescing Solvents for Waterbased Architectural & Industrial Paints B – Soy Epoxy Replacements for BPA Resins in Soventbased Industrial Paints C – Soy Dispersions & Emulsions for Waterbased Architectural Paints D – Soy Solvents for Alkyd, Epoxy & Urethane Industrial Paints E – Soy Dispersants for Solventbased Industrial Paints For each of the above areas, projects were designed to assess the performance of the soy materials versus their petroleum counterparts. This included the identification of petroleum benchmarks, selection of starting point formulations and preparation of test protocols for performance assessment. Detailed activities included raw material acquisition, formulation, paint making, panel preparations and testing. The final deliverable of Stonebridge’s work was to share the information obtained by presenting at the Western Coatings Symposium. This was accomplished in October 2023 by Debora Hense, along with two other presentations given in May and September 2023 by Kris Weigal, Omni-Tech International (Easter Coatings Symposium and Coatings Trends & Technologies). Stonebridge will continue to share the results of its work through additional presentations and publications in 2024.

Benefit To Soybean Farmers

Stonebridge's work benefits the US Soybean Farmers through the sharing of information to stakeholders that demonstrates the effective use of soy-based raw materials in paints and coatings as more-sustainable alternatives for their petroleum-based benchmarks.

The United Soybean Research Retention policy will display final reports with the project once completed but working files will be purged after three years. And financial information after seven years. All pertinent information is in the final report or if you want more information, please contact the project lead at your state soybean organization or principal investigator listed on the project.