Phase Change Materials-Embedded Coatings Prepared by In-situ Polymerisation of Water-borne Polyurethane-urea

Abstract

Waterborne polyurethane-urea (WBPU) emulsions embedded with phase change materials (PCM; hexadecane, octadecane, and eicosane) as microspheres were prepared by in-situ polymerisation in an emulsion system. Polyamide fabrics were coated with coating materials formulated from PCM embedded WBPU/thickener/hardener. The maximum /optimum contents of embeddable PCM in WBPU dispersions for stable WBPU emulsions were found to be about 30 wt%. By DSC analysis,)Hfusion,)Hcrystallization, and the embedding efficiencies of PCM of film samples were found to increase with increasing PCM contents of up to 30 wt% to reach their maximum values. The maximum buffering temperature of polyamide fabrics coated with PCM (30 wt%) embedded WBPU were about ± 3 °C around the phase transition points of PCM. The PCM (30 wt%) embedded WBPUs dispersions prepared here by in-situ polymerisation show excellent potential as coating materials, with good heating and cooling functions.