Study the Curing Behavior and Mechanical Properties of Pigmented UV Curable Epoxy Acrylate in the Presence of Different Acrylate Monomers

Non-pigmented and pigmented UV-curable coatings are being used extensively in adhesive, printing and electrical industries. One of the main obstacles for the extension of their use in other industries is the inferior curing of thick pigmented formulations. In this work, the pigmented and non-pigmented formulations containing different acrylate monomers with different structures and functionalities were applied to obtain pigmented acrylate films by UV exposure. The conversion and mechanical characteristics of the systems were correlated. The results showed that there was a significant interaction between the presence of pigment, the type of reactive diluents and mechanical properties of the coatings. It seems that cured films containing isobornyl acrylate had a good tensile strength. For obtaining higher hardness and Tg, monomers with higher functionality such as dipentaerythritol pentaacrylate and dipentaerythritol hexaacrylate was needed.