Air-drying coatings typically contain three major components: a binder that forms the final coating, a solvent that affects coating consistency and ease of application, and a drier that enhances the rate at which the binder converts into the final coating. Historically, drying oils such as soybean oil have been used as binders in coatings, but these natural binders were displaced by petroleum-based binders in the 20th century. Recent interest in more renewable and less toxic coatings has led to renewed interest in drying oils as binders, leading to the commercialization of several soybean oil-based coatings. Unfortunately, these coatings typically only contain a small fraction of “renewable” i.e., soybean oil-derived, binder with the bulk still derived from petroleum. This is because petroleum-derived binders dry much faster than soybean oil, limiting the amount of soybean oil that can be added before drying times become unacceptably long. This limitation is a consequence of using soybean oil as a drop-in replacement in coatings using driers optimized for petroleum-derived binders. In order to address this limitation, driers specifically designed for use with soybean oil must be developed. Specifically, more active driers are needed to compensate for the longer intrinsic drying time of soybean oil. Our group has been researching the mechanisms by which driers catalyze the air-drying of drying oils as part of the NDSU Center for Sustainable Materials Science (CSMS). The proposed research will apply the insights from our CSMS research to develop superior driers for soybean oil-based coatings.