| Contents Notes |
"The coatings manufacturing industry has advanced the state-of-the-art for producing low volatile organic compound (VOC) based finishes for wood furniture. These improved coatings have the potential to overcome earlier objections of the furniture industry to attempts to regulate lower VOC emissions in this industry. The objective of this project was to evaluate a low-VOC finishing system for the manufacture of wood furniture and to compare its performance in the manufacturing process to an equivalent conventional solvent based system. The production of furniture finished with a conventional solvent-based system and several days production of wood furniture finished with a low-VOC system were observed and evaluated. All furniture was produced under a single contract with the General Services Administration (GSA), and was to be similar in color and style. In the low-VOC system, a waterborne combined toner and washcoat, a catalyzed sealer, and a catalyzed topcoat were used in place of part of the normal coatings used in the conventional finishing system. All problems, processing changes, personnel comments, and production figures were noted and analyzed. The reduction in VOC emissions was estimated from consumption data obtained during the observation period. The manufacturing economics, process changes, impacts on the environment, potential effects on worker health, and changes in energy requirements were evaluated for these low-VOC coatings." |
