One of the largest areas of commercial application of waterborne polymers is in coatings. However, while latex polymers have many advantages over traditional solvent based polymers the use of latex particles comes at cost. The necessity for a polymer with low enough T<sub>g</sub> to form a coherent film inevitably leads to a soft film with poor mechanical properties. Although there are routes to overcome these problems such as through the addition of coalescing agents, increasing concern over the environmental impact has led to the search for new routes to generating hard polymer films from latex particles in the absence of VOCs. In this work, we present results that highlight potential synthetic routes to obtain latex polymers which demonstrate both good mechanical strength as well as the capacity to form a film at ambient temperature.

From soft latex particles to hard films: Synthetic routes towards achieving contradictory properties

255th National Meeting (2018)

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