Developing a low-VOC interior paint
Follow a coatings team as it takes a paint from specifications to an approved formula: raw materials, formulation, a designed experiment, model suggestions, a regulation check and approval. Ten steps, about three minutes.
Product tour · Paints & coatings
Developing a low-VOC interior paint
Projects / Interior architectural / AquaShield 200
Project
Specifications
| Property | Target |
|---|---|
| VOC (g/L) | < 50 |
| Scrub resistance (cycles) | ≥ 1,000 |
| Contrast ratio | ≥ 0.980 |
| Stormer viscosity (KU) | 90 – 100 |
Linked to this project · shared with the team
Team
Inputs / Outputs / Raw materials
| Material | Supplier | Lot | Files |
|---|---|---|---|
| AC-410 acrylic binder | Northvale Polymers | NV-2291 | CoA · SDS |
| RT-20 TiO₂, rutile | Ardent Minerals | AM-0817 | CoA · SDS |
| CC-5 calcium carbonate | Ardent Minerals | AM-0790 | CoA · SDS |
| KL-90 calcined kaolin | Halden Clays | HC-1145 | CoA · SDS |
| CX-12 coalescent | Kestrel Chemical | KC-3302 | CoA · SDS |
| HT-300 HEUR thickener | Kestrel Chemical | KC-3188 | CoA · SDS |
| SF-210 surfactant | Brightwell Surfactants | BW-5520 | SDS |
Material fields
CX-12 coalescent
Initial boiling point above 250 °C at 101.3 kPa, so it is not a VOC under the EU definition.
AquaShield 200 / Experiments / AQ-200 v3.0
| Ingredient | Role | wt % |
|---|---|---|
| Water | Solvent | 20.3 |
| RT-20 TiO₂ | Pigment | 22.0 |
| CC-5 calcium carbonate | Extender | 12.0 |
| KL-90 calcined kaolin | Extender | 6.0 |
| AC-410 acrylic binder | Binder | 36.0 |
| CX-12 coalescent | Coalescent | 1.2 |
| HT-300 HEUR | Thickener | 0.5 |
| SF-210 surfactant | Wetting | 0.6 |
| Other additives (4) | Various | 1.4 |
Calculations
Set up for this project · update as you edit · total 100.0 %
AquaShield 200 / Design / DOE-01
Factors
| Factor | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| CX-12 coalescent, wt % | 0.6 | 2.0 |
| AC-410 binder, wt % | 32 | 40 |
| HT-300 thickener, wt % | 0.3 | 0.7 |
Design
11 recipes| Recipe | CX-12 | AC-410 | HT-300 |
|---|---|---|---|
| R-01 | 0.6 | 32 | 0.3 |
| R-02 | 2.0 | 32 | 0.3 |
| R-03 | 0.6 | 40 | 0.3 |
| R-04 | 2.0 | 40 | 0.3 |
| R-05 | 0.6 | 32 | 0.7 |
| + 3 more corner recipes and 3 center points, ready for the lab | |||
AquaShield 200 / Experiments / DOE-01 / Results
| Recipe | Scrub (cycles) | Contrast ratio | Stormer (KU) | VOC (g/L) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| R-05 | 660 | 0.985 | 101 | 35 |
| R-06 | 780 | 0.985 | 104 | 60 |
| R-07 | 930 | 0.979 | 99 | 35 |
| R-08 | 1,260 | 0.979 | 103 | 60 |
| R-09 | 960 | 0.982 | 95 | 47 |
| R-10 | 975 | 0.982 | 96 | 47 |
| R-11 | 950 | 0.981 | 95 | 48 |
AquaShield 200 / Visualize
Against specifications
0 of 11 recipes meet all four specifications
AquaShield 200 / Design / Suggestions
Model trained on DOE-01 (11 recipes) · predicted values with uncertainty
AquaShield 200 / Experiments / AQ-200 v3.1 / Regulations
| SCAQMD Rule 1113, nonflat coatings: 50 g/L | 48 g/L |
| Retail Partner restricted-substance list | 1 match |
| Internal restricted list | Clear |
Rules set up for this team
Research request
Alternative ingredients for SF-210
AquaShield 200 / Experiments / AQ-200 v3.2
Results · R-13 (v3.2, SF-330)
Approval
Exports for production
Exports set up for this team
Linked records
See it with your own data
Bring a project your team is working on. A specialist replies within 30 minutes during business hours to set up a 30-minute intro call.
A low-VOC interior paint
What the tour shows
The tour follows one paint from specification to approved formula. Each step is a platform screen filled with example data.
- Specifications linked to the project, so the whole team works to the same VOC, scrub resistance, hiding and viscosity targets.
- Raw materials that carry the supplier fields and files your team sets up, such as lot, CoA and SDS.
- A formulation built in wt %, with VOC, PVC, solids and cost calculations that update as the chemist edits.
- A full factorial design of experiments: three factors, 8 corner recipes and 3 center points.
- Results compared with the specifications as they come in, including KU readings from an instrument file import.
- A chart of VOC against scrub resistance that shows the trade-off across recipes.
- Model suggestions for the next recipe, with the uncertainty on each prediction.
- A regulation check against SCAQMD Rule 1113 and a retail customer's restricted-substance list, which flags an APEO surfactant.
- Approval through the team's approval workflow, kept in the audit record and linked back to the experiments behind it.
About the example data
AquaShield 200, the team and the suppliers are invented. The numbers stay consistent across all ten steps, so you can follow one recipe from the experiment design to approval.
The screens show the platform set up the way a coatings team might configure it. Each team configures its own fields, calculations, rules, workflow stages and exports, so your version would follow your methods and specifications.
See it with your own data
