During the drying of alkyd paints several different stages can be identified. The
first process is the physical drying of the paint. In this process, the solvent evaporates and
a closed film forms through coalescence of the binder particles. Then chemical drying
(also called oxidative drying) occurs, a lipid autoxidation process, which means that the
paint dries by oxidation of the binder compound with molecular oxygen from the air.
Autoxidation will be discussed in detail in the next section. During the drying process
four overlapping phases can be discriminated