Alkoxylate polyols and its possibilities in polymer and coating enhancement.

 
"The increasing demand for customized coatings, targeting more specific and challenging properties for the applied material, demands from coatings companies and their R&D staff, to explore more flexible and versatile materials for 2K systems. Alkoxylated polyols is a class of materials packed with benefits for specialty resins and 2K compositions development, that allows formulators to fine tunning several properties such as VOC content, chemical resistance and adhesion, for example, addressing not only improved performance, but also more sustainable profiles. Due to its high reactive hydroxyl functionality, there is a wide range of polymers (Polyesters, polyurethanes, etc?) and coatings systems that can be modified with this type of building blocks, making them an interesting option for markets like automotive, refinish, wood, metal, marine and aerospace coatings, but also adhesives, textiles, etc. Alkoxylated polyols unique properties like broad solubility profile and zero-VOC, make them feasible for 2K water and solvent-borne formulations. In the first case, being water soluble and highly compatible with latexes and resin dispersions, provide potential benefits in performance, as well as increasing solid content. And in solvent-borne cases, they also have good solubility and compatibility with acrylic, polyester and polyurethane systems, and due to their low viscosity, are useful for high solid / low-VOC formulations. In this work, we intend to present the highlights of studies, performed recently in our R&D facilities, where we explored several alkoxylated polyols, evaluating them in 2K systems like acrylic PU and polyester-polyol-melamine, showing its potential for high solid coatings development through viscosity curves, performance boost through improvements in general mechanical and chemical properties, like hardness and flexibility, and MEK resistance. Modifying polymers is also an interesting approach to incorporate alkoxylated polyols to adjust properties of specific resins as well. The incorporation of these polyols into polyester or polyurethane formulations allows the formulators to apply polyol benefits into technologies like water-borne polyurethane dispersions, solid polyesters for powder coatings, to name a few. We also intend to present, strategies to formulate such polymers, as well as application results supporting the benefits of this type of modification and the film properties, where the observed benefits are some how similar to the use of the polyols in 2K coatings, improving mechanical properties, like adhesion, and chemical resistance. In conclusion, our objective is to present an alternative approach for fine-tune performance of industrial coatings, with an easy to handle, no-VOC and versatile class of material, that could be tailored towards specific performance challenges through Indorama's expertise and capabilities with alkoxylated polyols.