| dc.description.abstract | Motorcycles manufactured in Taiwan have been well known with good quality and performance and are exported to other countries with large quantities. Moreover, the motorcycles produced in Taiwan are equipped with good emission control for the exhaust gas. However, the solvent-based paints is still applied in the process of coating, which causes significant emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCS), resulting in the adverse effects to the human health and environment. Thus, motorcycles surface coating industry is actively searching for alternative paint materials to reduce the air pollution generated. However, the material available and the shape and requirements of the coating surface have limited the applicable types of low-pollution paints. The study is motivated to investigate the applicability of self-developed water-borne polyurethane (PU) paint, which is specifically designed for motorcycle plastic coating. According to the major demands of paints and coating in this industry, the study compares the current solvent-based PU paint with the self-developed water-borne PU paint and evaluates the applicability based on VOCs reduction, technical and economic feasibility. When replacing with water-borne PU paint, the risk of worker’s exposure and fire accidents can be greatly reduced. As for VOCs reduction, 65.8% of VOCS reduction can be achieved without the extra investment of air pollution control devices. Furthermore, the VOCS pollution fee can be reduced by 67.9%.In the technical part, except that the short pot-life limitation and the hardness of coating cannot meet the current solvent-based coating standard, the rest criteria are in compliance with the requirements of the motorcycle coating industry. However, the amount of paints needed and the cost will increase significantly, i.e., the amount will increase 37.7% while the cost will increase 147.4%.Although VOCS emission standard had been proposed for motorcycle coating industry in Taiwan, the standard has not been implemented so far. In addition, the continuing increase of raw material cost makes it difficult for paints manufactories to produce, water-borne PU paints with a competitive cost. As a result, the win-win strategy between environment protection and business management has not been accomplished at this stage.
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