Novel Acrylic Polymers for Tennis and Pickleball Court Coatings

Gregory Monaghan, Specialty Polymers, Inc.

Many tennis and pickleball court coatings are no longer just based on low cost vanilla acrylics …the polymers are becoming more highly engineered to meet higher performance requirements in these coatings. In addition to having excellent UV resistance to withstand exposure to full sun, the coatings have to stand up to abrasion from foot traffic with the sudden starts and stops of a tennis game.  They also have to be able to be applied in thick films but still  dry quickly enough that they will not blister if the coatings get wet a few hours after application. Finally, the polymers must have good adhesion to the sand filler that is used for texture on the courts.   Several acrylic technologies which are designed to develop water resistance rapidly were evaluated for potential use in court coatings.  The chemistry of these different polymers and the performance benefits or drawbacks of each type of chemistry will be presented.

 High Solids Waterborne Polyamide Based Polyurethane Coatings

Eric Broz, Lubrizol, Inc.

2020 / 2021 SPONSORS

• Alberdingk-Boley USA

• Brenntag Specialties

• Evonik

• Lubrizol

• Hall Technologies

• Maroon Group

• PolyAziridine LLC

• Specialty Polymers

• Stonebridge Laboratories

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Lubrizol has developed new water-borne resin technology that utilizes polyamide-based polyols as the soft segment in polyurethane dispersions. Coatings based on this patented resin technology can provide solvent-borne like performance including high levels of hardness, abrasion resistance, and chemical resistance in an easy to use 1K water-borne system.  The highest attainable solids content for waterborne polyurethane dispersions is typically lower than what can be achieved for acrylic emulsions but this novel polyamide-based technology can also be used to make high solids waterborne dispersions with over 50% solids content, approaching the limits of acrylic emulsions while maintaining a high Tg polyurethane. This presentation will cover how increased solids content has several benefits for coatings applications including the elimination of a coating step, thicker coatings, reduction of dry time and lowered coalescing solvent demand. The combination of these advantages and the well-known high performance of the polyamide-based urethanes is expected to be a valuable benefit in a variety of different coating applications.