A novel method to prepare polyurethane dispersions (PUDs) is introduced in this article. Water dispersible polyurethane ionomer pellets were synthesized without solvent; these pellets were then dissolved in acetone and dispersed in water. Then PUDs were obtained after acetone was distilled off. Polyurethane ionomers were synthesized from polyether diol containing sulfonate as hydrophilic monomer and poly(1,4-butylene adipate glycol) with an average molecular weight of 3000 as soft segments, isophorone diisocyanate and 1,4-butanediol as hard segments, and dibutyltin dilaurate as catalyst. The properties of PUDs were measured by Laser particle size analyzer, Brookfield viscosity, and TEM analysis. High-solid content and low viscosity PUDs were obtained. Meanwhile, PUDs exhibited excellent stability and polydispersity according to the above analysis. Tensile tests and dynamic mechanical analysis showed good mechanical and thermodynamic properties of PUD films. Some typical characteristics of crystalline polymers were revealed in the tensile stress–strain curves of PUD films. Peel strength test (PVC/PVC) yielded a maximum initial peel strength value of 6 N/mm and T-peel strength value of 10 N/mm. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013
Aqueous polyurethane (APU) dispersions having a solid content of 50% were synthesized using dimethyol propionic acid (DMPA) as the stabilizing moiety. The principal diols used were poly-1,4-butylene adipate glycol (PBA). The diisocyanates used in this study were a 30:70 blend of hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) and isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI). All these samples were neutralized using triethylamine (TEA) and chain-extended using ethylene diamine (EDA). The effects of the COOH content, NCO/OH molar ratio, and molecular weight (Mn) of PBA on the properties of APU dispersion and its cast film were studied. Dynamic light scattering results revealed that these high solid content dispersions shown broad particle size distributions as well as bimodal. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMA) results showed that as the hard segment content increased, the melting point (Tm) of the APU cast film increased, but the glass transition temperature (Tg) did not show significant alteration, when a PBA lower than 1000 Mn was used, the APU exhibited faint soft-segment crystallization and tended to form amorphous polymer. Tensile and T-peel strength tests attained excellent mechanical properties, such as a maximum Young's modulus of 166 MPa and the elongation at break reached to 2000%. T-peel strength test (PVC/PVC) yielded a maximum peel strength value of 8.8 N/mm. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2007