What Is Paint?
Paint is a mixture of a liquid vehicle, such as oil or a resin, and one or more colored powders. The colored powders, called “pigments,” give the paint its color. The vehicle is usually combined with a thinner.
Thinners such as turpentine make the paint easy to spread onto a surface. When the vehicle is exposed to the air, it begins to dry and harden. This causes paint to become a hard film that holds the pigment to the painted surface.
Paint is more than just the color though; it is a material that is applied as a liquid and dries by a variety of chemical processes to a solid. Indoors, paints give our homes and other buildings color and brightness. Outdoors, they also protect surfaces from the weather.
Paint typically consists of pigment, resin, solvent and additives:
.Pigment – to provide color, hiding and control gloss.
.Resin – the binder to hold the pigment particles together and provide adhesion to the surface painted.
.Solvent – to act as a carrier for the pigments and resin – the solvent may be organic or water.
.Additives – to enhance certain properties such as ease of brushing, mould resistance, scuff resistance, drying and sag resistance.