Seeking An Additive To Enhance Wettability Of Polyvinyl Alcohol

A SpecialChem Client is looking for an additive to polyvinyl alcohol to enhance surface wettability and uniform spreading on a polypropylene substrate

The SpecialChem Client is spray coating a hydrophilic polymer solution of polyvinyl alcohol on a polypropylene substrate. The resulted dried coating is then exposed to a proprietary liquid mixture of water-insoluble vinyl and acrylic monomers. The current manufacturing process is expensive and difficult to process.

The SpecialChem Client wants to increase yield of manufacturing or decrease cost of materials. Specifically, they want to coat a thin layer (0.5 – 10 um) of hydrophilic polyvinyl alcohol on the non-polar polypropylene.

The hydrophilic additive to the polyvinyl alcohol solution will be embedded in the current process generating 100 million units per year; with the opportunity to expand into additional product lines.

• Enables spreading (wetting) of the polyvinyl alcohol solution on a polypropylene substrate which has a surface energy of 27 mN/m.
• Soluble up to about 0.5 wt% in aqueous solution containing polyvinyl alcohol.
• The layer of polyvinyl alcohol to be coated will be 0.5 to 10 um thick.
• The additive in the dried film must not migrate or be solubilized into the proprietary liquid (mixture of water-insoluble vinyl and acrylic monomers).
• Additive should be non-toxic or biocompatible.
• Alternatively: readily soluble in room temperature water or alcohol (washable).

Material selection (R&D) will be finalized in less than 3 months.

The formulated coating will then move onto process development and evaluation for commercialization in 2015.

Priority is on the quality of the Polyvinyl alcohol coating (smooth, continuous and defect-free polyvinyl alcohol layer) and the ability to meet the requirements.