How is paint made?
Emily Beckett from Redcar and Cleveland (age 5-14)
Filed under: Answered Big Questions, Chemical Processing Big Questions, Engineering and Technology Big Qs, Neil Alastair Lamont's Big Answers, age 5-14
How is paint made?
Posted on February 20, 2008 by Administrator
Paint consists of three main groups of ingredients; these are the pigments, the binders and the solvent.
The pigments are what give the paint colour; there may be a range of these powders within the paint to give the particular colour required. For instance white paints often contain the white powder titanium dioxide, which is often present mixed with other more colourful pigments. The binders as the name may suggest are what hold the paint together and help it adhere to the surface that needs painting. The solvent is what allows you to paint the surface by keeping the paint fluid. This solvent often evaporates away allowing the binder and pigment to adhere to the surface.
To make the paint the pigment may be ground to make it a fine powder, which is then mixed with the binder and solvent until it is completely mixed (homogeneous).
In many instances multiple layers of paint are applied to surfaces. In Forensic Science this may enable paint to identify a particular make and model of car as being involved in an accident by the flakes of paint that have been felt.