Advanced and Sustainable UV-curable Aqueous Polyurethane Dispersions for CASE Applications

摘要

Photo-curing, more specifically ultraviolet (UV)-curing technology is among the fastest growing advanced coating technologies and is rapidly expanding into a host of new Coatings, Adhesives, Sealants and Elastomers (CASE) application areas. Their growing acceptance is primarily driven by their environmentally friendly features, performance of these coatings, potential for enabling new products and economy. Despite these benefits, the materials used in current photo-cure systems are predominantly derived from petrochemical sources making them unsustainable over the long term. Development of renewable resource-based alternate materials tailored for photo-cure applications is, therefore, very critical to future sustainable development of photo-cure coating technology. This presentation highlights our research efforts in developing a platform of soybean oil-based value-added building blocks and demonstration of their suitability as alternative raw materials in advanced waterborne UV-curing coating compositions. Hyper-branched soy-polyols have been developed and used as primary component of UV-curable polyurethane dispersions (UV-PUDs). Coatings based on UVPUDs with varying acrylate content and bio-based content > 45% have been characterized and compared. Due to hyper-branched structure and-OH functionality of slightly greater than 2, coupled with hydrophobic nature of this oil-derived polyol, these UVPUDs show interesting properties for many potential industrial applications. Further, this presentation will also highlight our very recent approach of developing non-isocyanate type UV-PUD for further reducing the environmental footprint of these systems. The study clearly demonstrates sustainable advanced photo-cure systems with potential for commercial CASE applications.