iZJU-China

Topic Overview

A special preference for turpentine

When it comes to turpentine for oil painting, some Chinese local oil painters would recall those memorable days when they made turpentine by themselves through the distillation of resin collected from pine trees. Around the middle of last century, China didn't have a complete industrial system to develop and produce high-quality oil painting thinner substitutions. Thus, turpentine was the only oil painting thinner that most Chinese oil painters could afford to use during the early days of their oil painting career. (This story came from an interview, click here for more information.)

Nowadays, many experienced Chinese oil painters still prefer to use turpentine rather than other substitutions. They consider turpentine not only an economical oil painting thinner but a medium that takes them back to their youth when they relentlessly pursued their dream of oil painting despite the hard creation environment.

Figure 1. The original method to collect resin from pine trees.

Introduction

Turpentine for painting is an important thinner in oil painting. It increases the drying rate of oil painting pigments and helps painters create thin and airy brushstrokes. It is widely used in underpainting, which prevents color mixture when covered by another layer of pigments.

The main component of turpentine is α-Pinene, a volatile and poisonous liquid with a strong odor. High concentration (over 100ppm) of α-Pinene vapor irritates the skin and respiratory system and may cause a decrease in breathing rate. Also, inhaled α-Pinene vapor hurts the kidneys and the urinary system in the long term (2).

Professional oil painters are usually exposed to an environment with a high amount of turpentine vapor for at least 3 to 5 hours and don't realize the toxicity of it. In China, some oil painting students practice in the studio continuously for 8 to 10 hours a day to improve their painting skills, which is a long-time exposure.

α-Pinene vapor can have chemical reactions with Hydroxyl radicals in the troposphere and cause photochemical smog and the production of secondary organic aerosol that is harmful to our health. Putting our product in art studios can reduce large amounts of vapored α-Pinene and protect our environment (3).

Turpentine for painting does have some substitutes (Fig.1). However, they are more expensive and increase costs a lot as a consumable material in the long term, like Lavender Spike Oil and white essential oil. Some substitutes also release poisonous vapors and are less likely to be noticed, like odorless mineral spirits.

Table1. The pros and cons of turpentine substitutions.

Besides oil painting, turpentine is widely used in the field of industry and medicine. For example, After distillation, the pinenes in the turpentine can produce many fragrant chemical compounds, like camphor and linalool. And it is a good topical medication to help release pain and cure abrasions and sprains (4). Our product has the potential to be applied in those places that have high turpentine concentration.

Purposes

The main purpose of our human practice is to integrate all the stakeholders of turpentine for painting and apply their demands in our product design.

To achieve this, we have listed some more detailed purposes:

1.We aim to investigate the influence of turpentine vapor on our stakeholders in their daily lives.

2.We want to let more people know what synthetic biology is and its affective application.

3.We expect more stakeholders to realize the harmful effects of turpentine on our health.

4.Commercializing our product and improving the acceptance of engineering bacteria among the public are also what we want to achieve.

5.We desire to expand the influence of our project to more social organization and create a win-win potential in the future.

Approaches

Survey

The purpose of our questionnaire survey was mainly to understand the public's views on the safety of products related to engineering bacteria and the degree of knowledge about bacteria. In addition, a survey related to commercials was done to better understand customer requirements. We conducted a questionnaire survey online, offline, and cooperated with volunteer teaching teams, and obtained a lot of data, which provided support for us to improve the experimental design and product design. Click here for details.

Communication

In order to further obtain the background information on turpentine and oil painting and further improve the project ideas and product design, we communicated with different stakeholders throughout the project process, including several artists, students from the China Academy of Art and the sales staff of several painting material stores. Through these communications, we had a deeper understanding of the project. In addition, our experimental design was more complete, the product design was more feasible, and the business plan was expanded. Click here for details.

Biosafety handbook

We produced a biosafety handbook written by our team members and published it on multiple social media platforms at home and abroad, hoping to improve the public's awareness and understanding of bacterial safety. Click here here for details.