Preparation Of Waterborne Elastic Polyesters By Chain Extension With Isophorone Diisocyanate As A Chain Extender

Isophorone diisocyanate was used as a chain extender to coupling the soft segment water-borne polyester with the hard segment water-borne polyester, to overcome the disadvantages of low molar mass and poor mechanical properties of waterborne sulfonate-containing polyesters. The molecular structure of the extended polyester was confirmed by FTIR and H-1 NMR, and the increased molar mass of the resultant was characterized by SEC. The extended products could be dispersed in water with the emulsion particle size less than 50 nm in diameter, slightly larger than that of precursors of soft- and hard-segment polyesters. The emulsion viscosity of polyesters after the chain extension was lower when the emulsion concentration was not larger than 25 wt%, which is conducive to the spraying application of the polyester for coating. DSC analysis indicated that the polyester after chain extension had two different glass temperatures, suggesting that the polyester bulk had a microphase separation structure. The mechanical performance of the coupled polyester manifested an obviously improved elongation at break and had a feature of higher elastic recovery rate. The results of this study indicate that the chain extension is an effective method to increase the molar mass and improve mechanical properties of waterborne polyesters. (c) 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 48453.