An increased demand for new and improved coating systems, for environmental & health & safety and performance reasons, have appeared during the recent decades. Currently, there is new interest in preparation of thin UV curable urethane acrylate (UA) composite coatings with short-term properties. Cellulose based additives: nitrocellulose, cellulose acetate butyrate, sucrose benzoate and silica were evaluated to determine their influence on unreacted composite characteristics (viscosity, pigment suspension stability) and characteristics of cured film (ultimate tensile strength, elongation at break, surface gloss, surface scratch resistance and film adhesion loss time). The most suitable additive content was found to provide required viscosity. All additives increase surface scratch resistance, but cellulose based additives increase surface gloss values and decrease the time of adhesion loss. Silica has great effect on the interaction between linear and hyperbranched urethane acrylates, which has crucial influence on the stability of uncured pigmented mixture samples.

Thin UV curable coating systems is an important research field from the industrial perspective due to the improved environmental profile and wide varieties of characteristics. When used for short-term applications as coatings on natural nail for esthetical and medical reasons, the system may be manipulated to attain various properties, either desired or required by the manufacturer e.g. ensuring both excellent long-term properties (deformability, toughness, and good adhesion) and short-term properties (ability to be destroyed quickly after use). Performance of thin UV curable urethane acrylate composite coatings was investigated depending on the content of the additive. Nitrocellulose (NC), cellulose acetate butyrate (CAB), sucrose benzoate (SB), and silica were evaluated to determine their influence on unreacted composite characteristics (viscosity, suspension pigment stability) and reacted film characteristics (ultimate strength, elongation at break, surface gloss, surface micro hardness, and film adhesion loss). According to the tests performed all additives increase the modulus of elasticity. CAB and NC increase the elongation at break values, and strongly increase the uncured gel viscosity, what makes it inconvenient for application.