What alternative could we use replace the toxic drier lead naphthenate ?
It is not easy to dispense with lead naphthenate and other lead based driers for technical reasons, but the toxicity of these compounds makes this unavoidable. One alternative could be to use driersbased on manganese or zirconium. Although manganese driers are effective, they do cause discolouration of light coloured paints.
This would not be a problem with zirconium driers, although these are not as effective as manganese ones. There would to be interesting possibilities in using multimetal driers such as the combination of cobalt, barium and zirconium. Cobalt-zirconium and cobalt-manganese. Perfomence requirement and test methods for these have already been include in standard specification such as ISO 4619 and DIN 55901.
