High Throughput Screening of Polyurethane Coating Mechanical Properties

High throughput screening (HTS) is of particular interest to many applications that require rapid screening of limited quantities of material. HTS is significantly faster and requires significantly less material than conventional assays. To further extend the functionality of screening available for coatings, we report on the development of a high-throughput mar (HT-Mar) characterization instrument for quantitative measurement of scratch damage to coatings. We apply this new technique, along with high-throughput mechanical (HT-MECH) characterization, ATR-FTIR, and solid-state NMR, to a comprehensive screening of polyurethane films composed of blended isocyanates (Desmodur-N-3390, Desmodur Z-4470, or ADI Trimer) and the polyols Desmophen A-365 or Joncryl 920. We report response of tensile strength, elongation at break, and scratch depth to differences in composition (3 levels), chemistry (7 systems), and curing conditions (3 conditions), and how these responses are correlated to structure from FTIR and NMR measurements.