Study of waterborne polyurethane materials under aging treatments. Effect of the soft segment length

Abstract

Coatings made of waterborne polyurethane dispersions are a promising alternative to solvent-borne ones but their mechanical and thermal properties under harsh outdoor conditions such as high temperature and humidity are somewhat limited. In this work saturated polyesters (PBA) with different molecular weights (800–2600 g/mol) were synthesized by reacting adipic acid with 1,4 butanediol. These polyols, an internal emulsifier, and an aliphatic diisocyanate were used as raw materials to synthesize polyurethane (PU) aqueous dispersions with solids contents of 29–38 wt%. The increase of the molecular weight of the polyol decreased the mean particle size of the PU dispersions from 308 to 78 nm.Polyurethane (PU) films were obtained by water evaporation of the PU dispersions and they were annealed at 80 °C for 2 h. Accelerated aging studies were performed by submerging the PU films in the water at 80 °C for 2 h. The PU films synthesized with the polyols with lower molecular weight exhibited enhanced phase miscibility, giving place to storage and loss moduli of similar magnitudes in a wide temperature range and they were less susceptible to hydrolytic degradation. Microphase miscibility was favored when shorter polyols are used. Contact angle measurement and cross-hatch adhesion test on PU coatings placed on stainless steel plate, before and after annealing and water aging were carried out. All PU coatings retained the adhesion to the substrate after aging, the PU coatings synthesized with shorter polyols exhibited enhanced adhesion.