Amine-Containing Resin for Coating with Excellent Formaldehyde Removal Performance

Abstract

Formaldehyde (HCHO) is known to be a strong carcinogen, widely present in construction substances. To remove HCHO in the environment, we propose to graft organic amines to the chains of resins used in coatings, and when the indoor walls are coated by the materials containing such resins, HCHO can diffuse from the environment into the coatings to react with amines through irreversible nucleophilic addition. Specifically, we have introduced diallylamine (DA; as a comonomer) in poly(methyl methacrylate–butyl acrylate–methacrylic acid) (PMA) to form the DA–PMA resins through emulsion polymerization. It is found that the films formed from the DA–PMA resins with the mass fraction of DA from 1 to 5% can effectively remove HCHO. The largest average rate in HCHO removal has reached 0.198 mol h–1 kg–1 in the case of DA–PMA with 5% DA. In addition, the introduction of DA is able to improve the colloidal stability of DA–PMA particles, and the smoothness of the DA–PMA films is rather similar to that of pure PMA. Because of the cross-linking role of DA, the thermal stability of the DA–PMA polymers has been significantly improved with respect to pure PMA. It should be noted that a similar amine-containing resin was prepared using N,N′-methylenebis(2-propenamide) as the comonomer, but it did not perform as well as that made with DA. Proper theoretical (density functional theory) calculations provided an explanation and might enable one to predict in advance whether other related calculations might, or might not, work.