**1. Introduction**

78 Polyurethane

Ying, J. (Ed.) (2002). *Nanostructured Materials: Advances in Chemical Engineering,* 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ISBN 0-12-008527-5, Cambridge

#### **1.1. Water-based polyurethane dispersions**

Water-based polyurethane dispersions (PUD) are a rapidly growing segment of polyurethane (PU) coatings industry due to environmental legislations such as the clean air act and also due to technological advances that made them an effective substitute for the solvent-based analogs. Water-based or waterborne PUD have gained increasing importance in a range of applications, due in large part to properties such as adhesion to a range of substrates, resistance to chemicals, solvents and water, abrasion resistance and flexibility. Water-based PUD show very good mechanical and chemical properties and match the regulatory pressures for low volatile organic compound (VOC) containing raw paints. The continuous reduction in costs and the control of VOC emissions are increasing the use of water-based resins, motivating the development of PU dispersed in water. PU obtained from water-based PUD have superior properties when compared with similar materials obtained from organic media. Water-based PUD are used in many application areas to coat a wide range of substrates - for example footwear adhesives, wood lacquers for flooring and furniture, leather finishings, plastic coatings, printing inks and automotive base coats (Rothause et al., 1987; Kim et al., 1994; Ramesh et al., 1994).

Regarding the chemical nature of PU, the water based PU are applied with higher solids content, compared to the solvent based PU, because their viscosity does not depend on the molecular weight of PU, as is the case for solvent based PU (Gunduz & Kisakurek, 2004). Thus waterborne PUD can be prepared at high solid contents with a molecular weight enough to form films with excellent performance resulting solely upon "physical drying". This means that the film formation occurs by simple evaporation of water even at room temperature.

© 2012 Cakić et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2012 Cakić et al., licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Waterborne PUD are fully-reacted PU systems produced as small discrete particles. 0.1 to 3.0 micron, dispersed in water to provide a product that is both chemically and colloidally stable, which only contains minor amounts of solvents and does not emit VOC. Polymeric structure of waterborne PUD is formed by usually reacting an excess of aliphatic isocyanates (mainly IPDI or HDI based), with a polyol or a mixture of polyols to form a prepolymer containing the so called soft segment. The polyols are generally polyesters, polyethers, or polycarbonates. The hard segment is generally formed by chain extending the prepolymer with short chain diamines and from the short chains containing ions. Due to incompatibility between the two segments of the polymer chain, the hard segment separates and aggregates into domains that act as reinforcing fillers to the soft segment. The degree of phase separation as well as the the concentration of the hard segments are contributing factors to the good properties of PUD. PU backbone with a minority of the repeat units contains pendant acid or tertiary nitrogen groups, which are completely neutralized or quarternized, respectively, to form salts. Such ionomeric groups are absolutely necessary for the formation of dispersions, because they act as internal surfactants, and are not incorporated in the chain of the solvent-based PU. Ionic centers in the hard segment generally favor segregation and cohesion within the hard segment domains due to their strong electrostatic forces and thermodynamic incompatibility with the polymer matrix. Water-based PUD can be divided into two classes. The first group consists of polymers stabilized by external emulsifiers, and second one achieves stabilization by including hydrophilic centers in the polymer. Such hydrophilic centers may be one of the three types: non-ionic, cationic groups and anionic groups. These hydrophilic groups fulfill the function as internal emulsifiers and make possible to produce stable water/based emulsions. Water–based PUD can be classified into anionic, cationic and nonionic systems (Rothause & Nechtkamp, 1987; Kim et al., 1996).

Thermal Analysis of Polyurethane Dispersions Based on Different Polyols 81

1. the environmental law requires for the development of ecological-friendly products for which the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) have been reduced to a

2. the economic reasons (substitution of expensive organic solvents in conventional PU

3. the water PU surpasses performance of conventional isocyanate- and/or solvent-

4. continuous increase in solvent prices, low raw material costs and easy to clean up the

The basic components used to build up PUD include long–chain polyether, polyester or polycarbonate polyol, diisocyanate, aromatic or (cyclo)aliphatic, low molecular weight glycol and /or diamine, bis–hydroxycarboxylic acid and a neutralization base. In general, an excess of diisocyanate is treated with a long-chain linear polyol, bis-hydroxycarboxylic acid and other low-molecular-weight glycol to form an isocyanate-terminated prepolymer with a segmented structure. In this polymer, the long-chain polyol units form soft segments, and the urethane units-built up from diisocyanate, glycol and bis-hydroxycarboxylic acid form hard segments. The pendant carboxylic acid groups are neutralized with base to form internal salt group containing prepolymers that can be easily dispersed in water. The microphase separation between the incompatible soft- and hard-segment sequences contributes to the unique properties of PUD. The PU chains with NCO terminating groups can be extended with glycol forming urethane groups. Chain extenders are low molecular weight, hydroxyl and amine terminated. Aliphatic isocyanates: hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI), isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) and (4,4'–diisocyanatodicyclohexylmethane (H12MDI), improve thermal and hydrolytic stability, resistance to UV degradation and they

Aliphatic diisocyanates are less reactive than aromatic ones and they must be used with certain catalysts. Aromatic isocyanates: methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), toluene diisocyanate (TDI) and 1,5–naphthalenediisocyanate (NDI) on the other hand, provide for toughness but yellow upon exposure to UV light. Although early water dispersed PU resins heavily utilized TDI, there is a high tendency to shift to aliphatic diisocyanates or to the aromatic diisocyanates with NCO groups not directly attached to an aromatic nucleus

The two key classes of polyols are polyethers and polyesters. Polyester polyols have been largely used in PUD paints as they exhibit outstanding resistance to light and aging. There are four main classes of polyester polyols: linear or lightly branched aliphatic polyester polyols (mainly adipates) with terminal hydroxyl groups, low molecular weight aromatic polyesters for rigid foam applications, polycaprolactones, polycarbonate polyols. Polyether polyols are susceptible to light and oxygen when hot, however, they improve water dispersion, and impart chain flexibility. These are made by the addition of alkylene oxides,

reactor system made waterborne PU system more popular in the industry.

minimum,

with water),

containing PU,

do not yellow (Bechara, 1998).

(Gunduz & Kisakurek, 2004).

**2. Ingredients for water–based PUD** 

Several processes have been developed for the synthesis of PUD. All of these have in common the first step, in which a medium molecular weight polymer (the prepolymer) is formed by the reaction of suitable diols or polyols (usually macrodiols such as polyether or polyester) with a molar excess of diisocyanates or polyisocyanates. In this reaction mixture, an internal emulsifier is added to allow the dispersion of the polymer in water; this emulsifier is usually a diol with an ionic group [carboxylate, sulfonate, or quaternary ammonium salt) or a nonionic group poly(ethylene oxide)]. The internal emulsifier becomes part of the main chain of the polymer. The critical step in which the various synthetic pathways differ is the dispersion of the prepolymer in water and the molecular weight build-up. The most important dispersions are emulsifier-free ionomer dispersions. The resulting dispersions are mainly anionic or non-ionic, that have the potential for wide variations in composition and property level. They can be obtained by different processes, however, the earliest process to prepare the aqueous PUD is known as acetone process and this process has remained technically important so far (Hepburn, 1992; Oertel, 1985). Within the last three decades several new processes have been developed such as prepolymer mixing process, hot melt process and ketamine/ketazine process.

The facts that aqueous/water PUD have become increasingly important for industrial and academic research in recent years is due to the following reasons:

