Microsilica filler for polyurea systems
Daria Pakuła, Marta Dobrosielska, Bogna Sztorch, Maciej Popiół, Bartosz Klonowski, Dariusz Brząkalski, Bogdan Marciniec, Robert E. Przekop
Quarterly No. 2, 2019 pages 76-82
DOI:
keywords: polyurea, coatings, fillers, microsilica, spray-coating
abstract Microsilica is widely used as a reinforcing filler due to its high commercial availability and low price, which plays a significant role in reducing production costs. It fills the empty volumes of the material and decreases the porosity, which in turn improves the mechanical properties of composites. Polyurea coatings modified with microsilica and aerosil were prepared using a spray-coating machine. The materials were characterised in terms of thermal stability (thermogravimetric analysis -TGA, differential scanning calorimetry - DSC), mechanical properties (tensile strength, Shore D scale hardness), and hydrophilic-hydrophobic properties. To confirm the structure of the obtained materials, FT-IR spectroscopy was used. SEM analysis was performed to assess the dispersion of the modifiers in the polyurea coatings. The physicochemical properties of the obtained compositions were measured after ageing the samples under different conditions, including storing at room temperature, curing for 5 and 14 days at 80°C and weathering for 500 h with UV irradiation in a weathering station. The collected results show that the addition of microsilica improves not only the mechanical properties, but also the thermal stability of the obtained composites.