Compared with solventborne systems, traditional waterborne parquet coatings are lacking in various properties such as scuff- and chemical resistance. Several approaches have been investigated in the past to overcome these drawbacks, but many of them were not totally successful. New generations of raw materials for manually applied parquet coatings (waterborne one- and two-component) and industrial application (UV-curing parquet coatings) were developed. Each represents remarkable progress in its particular field of application. These new systems are discussed with respect to their properties and polymer structure. In particular, advantages of waterborne UV-curing parquet coatings over 100 % solids unsaturated acrylics are described, together with new coating concepts for prefinished parquet. Parquet floors are laid in private homes as well as in public buildings such as theaters, museums, conference centers, hotels, restaurants, sports halls and dance venues. These wood surfaces are almost invariably subjected to high mechanical stresses. To preserve the natural beauty of the wood, parquet floors are usually protected by surface coatings. The parquet could be either precoated by the manufacturer or finished on site. In the case of on-site applied finishing or refinishing, waterborne coatings or solventborne finishes based either on urethane alkyds or polyurethanes are usually used. In recent years, waterborne systems have been gaining popularity in the manually applied parquet coatings market. The main reasons for this are the significant reduction in the volatile organic content, low odor and ease of application. Developing low-VOC systems with the customary good properties of conventional coatings has therefore become a big challenge for manufacturers of coatings and coating raw materials.
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