MEETING THE REGULATORY CHALLENGE: MARRYING NOVEL SURFACTANT TECHNOLOGY WITH WATERBORNE HYBRID RESIN TECHNOLOGY FOR UNIQUE HIGH-PERFORMANCE SOLUTIONS TO <100 g/L

摘要

By marrying novel surfactant technology with solvent-free waterborne hybrid resin technology, coating formulations of which total VOC is less than 100 g/L are introduced. Urethane-acrylic hybrid polymer dispersions (HPDs) can offer cost/performance advantages over common 1K coating materials such as PUDs, acrylic emulsions, and blends thereof. Although both the PUDs and the HPDs provide many benefits, one disadvantage is the inclusion of N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) solvent, which is commonly a necessary process solvent included at levels ranging from about 3 to 15%. Due to new regulations, it has become desirable to eliminate NMP from these products. Consequently, solvent-free versions of HPDs have now been developed that, despite the lack of NMP used in their preparation, have been found to perform favorably compared to analogous solvent-containing polymers. It has been found that a novel Gemini surfactant, which contain two hydrophiles and at least two hydrophobes within a single molecule, can reduce the MFFT significantly. By using this technology, several starting-point coating formulations with total VOC of less than 100 g/L have been developed. The effect of various solvents and surfactants on the coating performance is also discussed.