Drying Agents: Their Benefits for Commercial Painting Projects

Most of us have heard the expression that something is as “boring as watching paint dry.” While no one seems to be officially credited with creating this popular simile, it seems to have been created at a time when commercial painting projects didn’t benefit from the application of drying agents (a.k.a. desiccants) that can significantly reduce the time it takes for paint to dry.

Today, high-quality drying agents hold several benefits for companies and private contractors that perform commercial painting projects. Whether you manage a large painting company or work as a contractor who only uses the services of a few employees, applying specially formulated desiccants to paint before applying it to surfaces can offer at least four benefits.

Quicker Turnaround Times
Increasing the rate at which paint dries can help you achieve quicker turnaround times for painting projects. Without the use of desiccants, painters must wait for paint to dry to assess whether it evenly covers painted surfaces. Consequently, even small painting projects often take two days: one day to apply paint and another day to assess results. When paint is made to dry fast enough, paint application and quality assessment can be performed on the same day.

Increase in Painting Projects
In the long run, achieving quicker turnaround times can help you take on more painting projects. If you routinely perform a quality assessment at least one day after paint is applied, it isn’t unfeasible that finishing projects and performing quality assessments on the same day would allow you to take on an additional painting project each month. If you are looking for painting technologies that help you perform more work in a given period of time, try our drying agents.

Reduced Use of Supplies
When the paint on a surface is wet, it often reflects light in a different manner than dry paint. In fact, the paint may even seem to be a different color. This phenomenon can make it hard to judge how much paint should be applied, and thus increases the likelihood of over applying it, especially if an area needs to be finished in one pass. Adding drying agents to paint helps painters quickly assess how much paint should be applied by observing how it looks when dry.

Improved Bottom Line
By helping them achieve quicker turnaround times, take on more painting projects, and potentially reduce the amount of supplies used, adding drying agents to paint can help the service provider improve its bottom line by reducing annual operating costs and increasing revenue. While it would be disingenuous to claim that desiccants can improve the provider’s bottom line outright, using the products properly can indeed have a positive financial impact.

Contact Us Today
If you are in the painting business, and you are interested in using desiccants to decrease the time it takes paint to dry, Ecolink can provide you with a readymade product or a custom product that meets your needs. Our drying agents can also be used for small residential painting jobs, but they tend to have the greatest impact on large, deadline driven commercial projects that would take much longer to complete were it not for the intermixing of desiccants with paint.

For more information about our drying agents and how they can benefit your painting business, give us a call today at (800) 563-1305, or refer to the contact page on our website.

Drying Agents for Industrial Cleaning

drying agent wipesIn case you are not familiar with the term drying agent, it is a chemical used to remove water from an organic compound. Such agents are fundamental to developing industrial cleaners and degreasers. Drying agents have been used in the industrial cleaning industry for years. They absorb or remove water helping to dry and clean, parts and materials, more quickly and efficiently. These cleaners are invaluable in the electronics industry where water can negatively impact the integrity of the part, or equally as important in aerospace or car assembly where water can compromise the seal of a product or the finish during assembly.

Drying agents are critical to developing powerful industrial cleaners.  In the process of making such solvents, compounds often become contaminated when coming into contact with water, which happens frequently due to the relevance of water in solutions. If you want to dry a chemical compound that is in a solution, use a highly concentrated sodium chloride agent to remove the abundance of water.  Water always moves from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration causing , two layers to form – the salt solution layer and the layer of dried organic compound solution. Then the  organic compound can be separated from the salt solution layer. Drying agents easily dissolve any extra water from the compound solution, causing the drying agent to become hydrated. The hydrated salts from the drying agents form clumps that can be filtered, resulting in a dry chemical compound.

For certain organic compounds that have been exposed to water, a drying agent must be used, which is usually comprised of an inorganic and insoluble salt that rapidly absorbs water. As you can determine from the information provided above, drying agents play an integral role to the development of safe industrial cleaning and degreasing solutions. Without drying agents, the chemical components of a compound being developed for industrial cleaning will not formulate correctly or as needed, rendering the intended cleaning agent a failure. Therefore, organizations that develop industrial cleaning solvents are careful and direct with the use of drying agents. Without drying agents, most green alternative and eco friendly industrial cleaners cannot be comprised.

For more information regarding the role of drying agents in the creation of industrial cleaning solutions, reach out to Ecolink. Ecolink professionals hold a complete understanding of this concept, and can assist you with any questions or concerns you have regarding the use of drying agents to form an industrial cleaning solvent. One of the best things you will find working with Ecolink, is that they have full time chemists on staff who are capable of blending cleaning compounds to deliver a custom solvent, degreaser or drying agent that will fit you exact needs. Flexible solutions are an asset you will discover when you contact Ecolink for your industrial cleaning needs. A professional representative is standing by, ready to assist you.