Abstract
A series of crosslinkable, waterborne polyurethanes (I-WBPUs) were prepared by in-situ polymerization using isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI)/poly(tetramethylene oxide) glycol (PTMG, $M_n$=2,000)/dimethylol propionic acid (DMPA)/ethylene diamine (EDA)/triethylamine (TEA)/aminoplast[hexakis(methoxymethyl)melamine (HMMM)] as a crosslinking agent. Typical crosslinkable, waterborne polyurethanes (B-WBPUs) blended from WBPU dispersion and aqueous HMMM solution was also prepared to compare with the I-WBPUs. The crosslinking reaction between WBPU and HMMM was verified using FTIR and XPS analysis. The effect of the HMMM contents on the dynamic mechanical thermal, thermal, mechanical, and adhesion properties of the I-WBPU and B-WBPU films were investigated. The storage modulus(E'), glass transition temperatures of the soft segment ($T_{gs}$) and the amorphous regions of higher order ($T_{gh}$), melting temperature ($T_m$), integral procedural decomposition temperature (IPDT), residual weight, $T_{10%}$ and $T_{50%}$ (the temperature where 10 and 50% weight loss occurred), tensile strength, initial modulus, hardness, and adhesive strength of both I-WBPU and B-WBPU systems increased with increasing HMMM content. However, these properties of the I-WBPU system were higher than those of the B-WBPU system at the same HMMM content. These results confirmed the in-situ polymerization used in this study to be a more effective method to improve the properties of the WBPU materials compared to the simple blending process.
