This paper reports a strong drying activity of manganese(III) acetylacetonate. It is documented on several solvent-borne and high-solid alkyd binders. Solubility problems, which often appear upon application of new primary driers, were overcome by use of dimethyl sulfoxide. Interestingly, intense coloration of the drier does not influence the transparent paint films due to in situ reduction to manganese(II) as evidenced by colorimetric measurements. Kinetics of the autoxidation process was investigated by infrared and Raman spectroscopy. For selected formulation, the effect of film thickness on through drying was estimated by infrared spectroscopy using attenuated total reflection sampling technique.
Keywords: EPR spectroscopy; Raman spectroscopy; alkyd paints; infrared spectroscopy; manganese; primary drier.