Fabrication and characterization of waterborne polyurethane/silver nanocomposite foams

Abstract

Nowadays the waterborne polyurethane (WPU) is a newly developed polymer foam material as a replacement for conventional organic solvent‐based polyurethane (PU). Nevertheless, the WPU foams exhibit some drawbacks such as inferior mechanical strength, low thermal and dimensional stability, which inhibits its large‐scale application at present. So a series of novel WPU/silver nanocomposite foams was successfully prepared by mechanical foaming method. The effect of silver nanoparticles (nano Ag) content on the morphology, thermal behavior, air permeability, water vapor transmission rate (WVT), mechanical, and antibacterial properties of WPU/Ag nanocomposite foams were systematically investigated. The results revealed that the nano Ag were uniformly dispersed in WPU matrix and facilitated cell growth, leading to enhanced mean pore size, thermal stability, air permeability, and WVT value of nanocomposite foams. About 122% improvement in the air permeability and 28% improvement in the WVT value were obtained when the nano Ag content extended from 0 to 4 wt%. It was found that the nano Ag content had great influence on tensile strength and elongation at break. When nano Ag content was 2 wt%, the nanocomposite foam exhibited the maximum tensile strength value of 1.26 MPa. Moreover, because of the addition of nano Ag, the nanocomposite foam showed bacteriostatic rate of 98.23% and 97.38% against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. POLYM. COMPOS., 40:1492–1498, 2019. © 2018 Society of Plastics Engineers

Synthesis and characterization of poly(urethane)/silver composites via in situ polymerization

“…The pre-polymer was synthesized in the first step using PEG and TDI in a threeneck round bottom flask under a nitrogen atmosphere and at 70 C in an oil bath. The mixture was stirred for 13 C-NMR (B) spectra of PU [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com] 8 h. PU was obtained from its monomers, TDI and PEG by a two-step process, using N-phenyl-di-ethanolamine as the chain extender and DMF as the solvent. The mixture was stirred for 24 h. The mole ratio of 1:2:1 of PEG: TDI: NPD was used.…”

“…FTIR measurements of the compounds were performed using a universal ATR sampling accessory between 4000 and 400 cm −1 . 1 H NMR (400 MHz) and 13 C NMR (100.6 MHz) spectra of PU were recorded on Bruker Avance-400 MHz high performance digital FT-NMR spectrometer by DMSO-d 6 as solvent at 25 C. Tetramethylsilane was utilized for the internal standard. The surface properties of composites were identified via SEM-EDX (Zeiss Evo 40; Ametek EDX).…”

“…[ 10 ] Ag nanoparticles into PU matrix could heighten the antibacterial properties and mechanical properties. [ 13 ]…”

“…[10] Ag nanoparticles into PU matrix could heighten the antibacterial properties and mechanical properties. [13] There are many studies about polyurethane and polyurethane-zinc composite synthesis in the literature. However, studies on the synthesis of polyurethane-silver composites are limited.…”

The Antifouling and Drag-Reduction Performance of Alumina Reinforced Polydimethylsiloxane Coatings Containing Phenylmethylsilicone Oil

“…Second, the characteristics of the nano-particles’ own high hardness can enhance the mechanical properties of the coatings. The elastic modulus of the coatings is also related to the crosslinking density [ 27 , 28 ]. The swelling equilibrium method was used to determine the relative molecular weight (Mc) between the adjacent crosslinking points of the polymer, as shown in Table 3 .…”