Chemical researchers discover catalyst to make renewable paints and coatings

The new catalyst technology is also highly efficient, which means lower costs for manufacturing renewable chemicals.

- 

A team led by the US-based University of Minnesota, researchers has invented a groundbreaking new catalyst technology that converts renewable materials like trees and corn to the key chemicals, acrylic acid and acrylates used in paints, coatings and superabsorbent polymers. 

The new catalyst formulation converts lactic acid-based chemicals derived from corn to acrylic acid and acrylates with the highest yield achieved to date. The technology exhibits substantially higher performance when benchmarked against other classes of leading catalysts.

The research is published online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society Gold JACS Au).