Researchers found that the introduction of thiocarbamate and thioether bonds into the polymer backbone using thiol-click chemistry accelerates the formation of a novel waterborne coating that exhibits high hardness, strength and fast curing.

Polyacrylates offer a promising possibility for the production of water-based coatings with improved properties such as hardness, strength and fast curing, as has been shown in research. Source: Adobe.Stock

The research proves that the optimised composition of the WPTUA dispersion system, especially with a content of 16 wt% TMPMP and 28 wt% PETTA, results in films that exhibit high hardness, excellent water resistance and good thermal stability on sensitive substrates such as paper, plastic and wood.

New strategies for synthesizing click chemical reactions have been studied and widely used in the synthesis of functional polymers. In this paper, based on thiol-click chemistry, thiocarbamate bonds and thioether bonds were introduced into the polymer skeleton, and then pentaerythritol tetraacrylate (PETTA) was introduced into the system to form an interpenetrating network structure (IPN). A new type of waterborne poly(thiourethane-urethane) acrylate (WPTUA) coating with strong toughness, high hardness, and rapid curing was obtained. Under the condition of an organotin catalyst, a WPTUA composite dispersion was prepared by using isophorone diisocyanate and polycarbonate diol as monomers, 2-dimethylol propionic acid as a hydrophilic chain extender, trimethylolpropane tris(3-mercaptopropionate) (TMPMP) and PETTA.