Several coatings have been developed to reduce volatile organic component emissions, such as water-borne coatings, high-solid coatings, powder coatings, and radiation-curable coatings. Ultraviolet-curable coatings are one such boon to paint industries, not only reducing volatile organic components but also increasing productivity. Most polymers industrially produced nowadays are based on petroleum, which is a limited resource. Developing new procedures for making polymers based on natural renewable resources is a resounding theme for this decade and the future also. In response to both these needs, we have investigated the use of tobacco seed (Nicotiana rustica) oil in the synthesis of radiation-curable coatings. In this work, the alcoholysis of oil in various ratios with polyhydroxyl compounds was performed to prepare novel polyols, and these different polyols were reacted further with excess polyisocyanate to produce isocyanate-terminated prepolymers. The prepolymer were further reacted with hydroxyethyl methacrylate to produce urethane acrylate oligomers. The radiation-curable coating compositions were than prepared by the mixing of these oligomers with different reactive diluents, photoinitiators, and activators. These coating compositions were studied for their various physical and film characteristics, and certain coating compositions from tobacco seed oil were found to show very excellent overall coating properties. (C) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, lnc.