The desire to use waterborne instead of solventborne coatings is driven by tighter government regulations on VOCs, which are moving to 50-100 g/L. In addition, consumers are demanding low odor in coatings, especially those used in interior applications. The challenge has been to make a low-VOC, low-odor paint system that offers the performance properties of a two-component solventborne polyurethane paint.
Two-component waterborne polyurethane coatings have been under development for decades and now meet the requirements for low odor and low VOC. In addition, the quality of these coatings has steadily improved to the point where their performance properties compare favorably with two-component solventborne polyurethane coatings. However, to date there have been few scientific studies done specifically to document the performance comparison of these two coating systems.