Today, growing concerns about the negative impact of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) on the environment have motivated the development of stricter regulations that control the VOC content of coatings. Due to this, coalescents with higher molecular weights and boiling points have been developed in order to comply with these regulations and help paint formulators to develop low-VOC paints.
Despite this trend of developing high-boiling-point coalescents there is little information available in the open literature about the drawbacks of using these coalescents. Some drawbacks can arise from the fact that high-boiling-point coalescents may not evaporate completely from the films, and thus negatively affect the properties of the final paints, such as the hardness1 and durability.