What causes surfactant leaching?
• Surfactant leaching refers to a sticky, brownish-yellow residue that shows up on a recently applied latex paint film. It usually occurs when the paint is exposed to high moisture or humidity while it’s drying and/or curing. • Surfactants are a necessary ingredient to all latex paints; they help give the paint good stability, color acceptance and application characteristics. Usually, surfactants in the paint will either evaporate away or get washed from the surface by rain or dew. However, under certain conditions, surfactant leaching can occur: • If the paint is applied in cool, humid conditions, it will dry more slowly, giving the surfactants time to migrate to the surface before the paint has dried. • When paint is subjected to mist, dew or fog shortly after it dries, the moisture can draw the surfactants to the surface of the paint film. • Tinted colors are more prone to surfactant leaching, due to the extra surfactants and glycols in the added colorant.
Surfactant leaching refers to a sticky, brownish-yellow residue that shows up on a recently applied latex paint film. It usually occurs when the paint is exposed to high moisture or humidity while it’s drying and/or curing. Surfactants are a necessary ingredient to all latex paints; they help give the paint good stability, color acceptance and application characteristics. Usually, surfactants in the paint will either evaporate away or get washed from the surface by rain or dew.
