Enhanced weather resistance of coated textiles

The work reports the effect of nano-ceria or cerium oxide (CeO2) nanoparticles and nano-zirconia or zirconium oxide (ZrO₂) nanoparticles on the weather resistance property of polyurethane (PU) based coatings. The concentrations of ceria and zirconia nanoparticles (NPs) were varied in the PU coating formulation to obtain optimum weather resistance property. The prepared PU/ceria and PU/zirconia nanocomposite-based formulations were coated on a high strength polyester fabric. Coated fabrics were exposed up to 300 h in accelerated weathering conditions.

Great potential

Both the nanoparticles (ceria and zirconia) showed a great potential in enhancing the weather resistance property of PU-coated fabrics, while the weather resistance improved gradually with increasing the concentration of nanoparticles up to a certain percentage (5 wt%). After 300 h UV exposure, the change in carbonyl index (CI) was 25%, 8.6% and 12.8% for the fabrics coated with neat PU, PU/ceria (5 wt%) nanocomposite and PU/zirconia (5 wt%) nanocomposite, respectively. The photooxidative index (PI) of PU/ceria nanocomposite was also much lower than the PU/zirconia nanocomposites, especially at higher concentration of nanoparticles (5 wt% and 10 wt%).

In case of PU/ceria nanocomposites, this significantly low CI and PI values indicated their better weather resistance potential compared to the PU/zirconia nanocomposites. As a consequence, after 300 h UV exposure, the percentage retention in tensile strength was significantly high for the fabric coated with PU/ceria nanocomposite (72%) in comparison to the neat PU (only 30%) and PU/zirconia nanocomposite (48%) coated fabric.

The study has been published in Progress in Organic Coatings, Volume 165, April 2022.