Editor’s Note: Following is Keith Moody’s answer to the problem presented in “Lindsey’s Curdled Dispersion” in the December 2018 issue of PCI.
Lindsay Doyle’s lube emulsion and her customer’s acrylic dispersion both crashed and separated like curdled milk. Al Kidd told Lindsay to add some “carb to the cell” in her acrylic dispersion formulation to prevent the separation. Al knew that both the lube and the acrylic dispersion problems had a similar cause related to temperature. What had caused both systems to crash, and how were the causes related? What did Al mean when he told Lindsay to add some “carb to the cell”?