Associative thickener for water-based polymer dispersions and paints
A current article focuses on developing a rheological approach to identify a suitable associative thickener (AT) for a paint formulation.
In this approach, a rheology viscosity curve was used on AT–emulsion polymer mix and AT–emulsion polymer–surfactant mix to short-list a suitable AT. Subsequently, the shortlisted ATs were tested in the paint formulation to study their efficacy.
Increasing polyurethane content leads to a decrease in thickening efficiency
Commonly used, hazardous air pollutants (HAPs)-free, commercially available ATs, viz. hydrophobically modified ethoxylated urethane thickener (HEUR) and hydrophobically modified poly(acetal- or ketal-polyether) thickener (HMPE), were selected to study their interaction with a unique surfactant-stabilised acrylic–polyurethane hybrid emulsion. A range of acrylic–polyurethane hybrid emulsions were prepared by increasing the polyurethane content in the emulsion. As the polyurethane content increased in the emulsion polymer, the thickening efficiency of AT decreased.
The study is published in: Journal of Coatings Technology and Research, July 2019, Volume 16, Issue 4, pp 1089–1098.
