Sustainable, Low-Emissions, High-Performance Polyols for Wood Floor Coatings

By Gary E. Spilman, Scott Moore, Simone J. Marshall

The industrial wood coatings space is undergoing some challenges and changes while continuing to grow. The development of sustainable, low-emissions, high-performance wood floor coating technologies continues to be of high interest to the coatings industry. Sustainable con-tent in these coatings contributes to an improved environmental foot print, while low-emission compositions improve the indoor air quality and thereby the health and well-being of building and home occupants desiring to re-occupy these structures as soon as possible.

Biorenewable-content polyols that incorporate low volatile organic content (VOC) (<150 g/L) technology to yield two-component (2K) polyurethane wood floor coatings that have excellent stain and chemical resistance, excellent adhesion to both bare and prefinished floors, good abrasion resistance, low odor, and excellent gloss have been developed. The new coating properties may be readily tailored to meet the individual needs of different floor coating jobs by simply adjusting the isocyanate index or isocyanate type.

This study compared a new fully formulated, 150 g/L coating based on this sustainable resin technology and demonstrated properties consistent with being the best overall protective coating for wood at the most economical usage (matching or better finish is achieved with only two coats vs the commercial products needing four or five coats over both original and refinished wood flooring) and lowest VOC in the test group. Initial performance from converting the new floor-coating products into waterborne systems was also investigated.