Impact Report 21:22 - Flipbook - Page 10
2.
Paint – a story as old as time
How crude oil becomes paint
The bi-products of fuel refining
seemed unpromising to begin with
– just a massive waste problem.
But with the advent of steam
cracking, hydrocarbons could
be reduced to monomers from
which synthetic polymers could
be built. Many of the descriptors
for these have passed into the
modern language - polystyrene,
epoxy, polyurethane, PVA, vinyl and
acrylic, for instance.
Developing this way of making
paint has resulted in low cost
production and in some cases this
is passed on to the consumer.
The retail prices for trade paint
and premium paint are markedly
different, even though the same
binders used in both account for
more than 40% of the cost.
Crude Oil
Mainstream
Modern
Paint
OIL
Diagram 1 shows the complex
supply chain of petrochemical
feedstocks for paint.
A significant proportion of the
36 million tonnes of all polymers
in liquid form made and sold
each year – over 31 million metric
tonnes – are sold in the paints and
coatings, inks and coatings, and
adhesives and sealants markets.
10
Essentially the main ingredients for
paint - Acrylic, Resins, PVA, Latex
Polyurethane, and Epoxy are made
from Crude Oil or Natural Gas.
Do you think these all sound pretty
unnatural? It’s because they are!
Historically this supply chain may
have had a few ingredients in short
supply but now has shortages
across the board.
edwardbulmerpaint.co.uk
