Studies on synthesis of environment-friendly products for paint and coating applications

In the study, environment-friendly products, such as ketonic resins were prepared by self-polymerisation of ketonic monomers in the presence of a base catalyst using a high-pressure batch reactor. The cross-polymerisation reactions of ketonic monomers were also examined in the work. The effects of reaction parameters, such as reaction time, temperature, catalyst concentration and monomer concentration on physico-chemical properties of the product, such as physical state, hydroxyl value, iodine value, acid value, viscosity, average molecular weight, solubility, softening temperature and thermal stability have been studied. From the results, it was observed that the polymerisation reactions with methylcyclohexanone (MCH) or cyclopentanone (CP) monomers offered high viscous liquid resins. However, addition of small proportion (5-10wt%) of MCH or CP along with cyclohexanone (CH) can play a significant role in obtaining a better quality product. It was also observed that CH and MCH monomers offered white colour resins, whereas CP monomer offered brown colour resins. The in-house-developed resins are thermally stable up to a temperature of around 180 degrees C. From the overall investigation, it can be concluded that the in-house-developed ketonic resin products can be a suitable substitute of alkyd, ketone-aldehyde or phenol-aldehyde resins for paint and coating applications.