Source · material
Paints and coatings
Also: paint, coatings, varnish, lacquer, wood stain, wall paint
Liquid finishes applied to surfaces indoors — wall paints, varnishes, lacquers and stains. They emit heavily while wet and for days afterwards as the film cures, and a low-emission label describes the product in the can rather than the surface after application.
Where it comes from indoors
A coating is a source with a shape in time. The solvent leaves during application and the first hours, which is the peak; the binder continues to cure for days or weeks, releasing smaller amounts of different compounds; and some constituents keep migrating out of the film for far longer than anyone expects a paint to be a source.
The composition follows the chemistry. Solvent-borne products release the hydrocarbons that carried them — toluene, xylene and aliphatics. Water-borne products release much less by mass, but not nothing: glycols and glycol ethers do the work the solvent used to do, and some formulations add formaldehyde through their preservative system.
European law limits the solvent content of decorative paints, which is a limit on what goes into the can. What the room receives also depends on how much surface was painted, at what temperature, and how the room was ventilated while it dried.
What the studies report
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | prevalence 48.5 | children at the age of two · dwelling | birth cohort in Paris: the parents of the children reported the exposures of the dwelling at the age of two, among them environmental tobacco smoke, bleach, glue and alkyd or acrylic paints used for renovation | F-1371 Apel Home environment: respiratory and allergic phenotypes from b… (2019) | machine |
| Total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) | mean 389.33 | — · test chamber | test-chamber study of water-based polyurethane and acrylate-polyurethane lacquers: volatile organic compounds in the coating and in chamber air 14 to 21 days and 60 days after application, with a toxicological grouping of the compounds | F-1053 Růžičková et al. Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dyn… (2025) | machine |
| Total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) | mean 180.61 | — · test chamber | test-chamber study of water-based polyurethane and acrylate-polyurethane lacquers: volatile organic compounds in the coating and in chamber air 14 to 21 days and 60 days after application, with a toxicological grouping of the compounds | F-1054 Růžičková et al. Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dyn… (2025) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | mean 2.46 | — · test chamber | test-chamber study of water-based polyurethane and acrylate-polyurethane lacquers: volatile organic compounds in the coating and in chamber air 14 to 21 days and 60 days after application, with a toxicological grouping of the compounds | F-1055 Růžičková et al. Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dyn… (2025) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | mean 2.47 | — · test chamber | test-chamber study of water-based polyurethane and acrylate-polyurethane lacquers: volatile organic compounds in the coating and in chamber air 14 to 21 days and 60 days after application, with a toxicological grouping of the compounds | F-1056 Růžičková et al. Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dyn… (2025) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | mean 0.33 | — · test chamber | test-chamber study of water-based polyurethane and acrylate-polyurethane lacquers: volatile organic compounds in the coating and in chamber air 14 to 21 days and 60 days after application, with a toxicological grouping of the compounds | F-1057 Růžičková et al. Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dyn… (2025) | machine |
| Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) | a compound the register has no slug for; it is named in the comparator | — · test chamber | test-chamber study of water-based polyurethane and acrylate-polyurethane lacquers: volatile organic compounds in the coating and in chamber air 14 to 21 days and 60 days after application, with a toxicological grouping of the compounds | F-1058 Růžičková et al. Indoor Airborne VOCs from Water-Based Coatings: Transfer Dyn… (2025) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Paints and coatings. Coridum Knowledge G-0139, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0139/