In the world of wood coatings, the demand for top-quality protection is very important, especially for sport flooring and high-wear residential and commercial spaces. Coatings must deliver exceptional resistance to abrasion, marring and scratching while enhancing productivity during application and reducing overall maintenance. This is where premium high-solids resin technologies come into play.

Polyurethane dispersions (PUDs) have always been tasked with providing toughness, mechanical properties and durability to water-based wood coatings. More recently, they are also expected to offer sustainability benefits.

Newly developed high-solids content PUD technology, with up to 50% solids, can deliver both sustainability and performance features in water-borne coatings for wood and protective applications. The sustainability benefits of Lubrizol high-solids PUDs include being free of materials of concern, making them safer to use, from the paint producer to the final user. With low VOCs, they improve wellbeing and meet customer demand for safer products, and they help paint producers comply with environmental regulations.

Water-borne PUDs are inherently more sustainable without the need for hydrocarbon-based solvents or potentially hazardous solvents. They become even more sustainable as the level of solids increases and level of water decreases. From a productivity standpoint, fewer layers needed, and faster drying times mean a faster return to service, increasing application efficiency.

High-solids PUDs can improve efficiency, enabling high-solids coatings to achieve more with less, saving time and resources while ensuring thorough coverage and durable protection for surfaces.

High-solids PUDs can help reduce overall transportation carbon footprint, helping to achieve decarbonization targets.

High-solids PUDs are a relatively new technology. More traditional polymer technologies include acrylic emulsions that can have higher solid content (33%-55%), but they are usually softer polymers with lower performance levels. Conventional PUDs have a lower solid content (33%-38%) than acrylic emulsions, but better hardness values and higher overall performance. But today, high-solids PUDs are available with up to 50% solids content, that can deliver high hardness and high performance.

Sustainability Benefits for Manufacturers

Freight and packaging savings with high-solids PUDs can be significant. For example, a PUD that has 50% solid content versus a PUD with 35% solid content means manufacturers can ship 35% more resin while reducing CO₂ emissions by up to 30%. Diving deeper into these figures, a PUD with 35% solid content needs packaging of 6 metric tons to deliver 2.1 metric tons of active solid content. With 50% solid content, 4 metric tons of packaging would deliver 2 metric tons of active solid content. That leads to an approximately 35% reduction in transportation costs and storage space.

Productivity Benefits for Contractors

High-solids PUDs can help simplify the coating application process by improving productivity and efficiency. That’s because they enable higher film build while maintaining clarity with fewer coats. With a 35%-solid PUD, three layers are typically needed. With 50% solid content, only two layers would be necessary to achieve equal performance. That equals a 35% reduction in application time and waiting time between layers, resulting in 50% more productive applications to save on labor costs and realize a faster return to service.

Turboset™ 5000HS Polyurethane Dispersion

Turboset™ 5000HS delivers performance, productivity and sustainability benefits in one high-solids PUD (50% weight solids). Turboset 5000HS is a TEA-free, one-component, self-crosslinking, water-borne polyurethane dispersion designed for clear wood finishes. It can be formulated to <50g/L VOC US (<20 g/L EU) and is designed to perform on sports, recreation and high traffic wood floors without the use of crosslinkers. Turboset 5000HS represents a significant advancement in the field of wood coatings. It provides outstanding performance, with excellent resistance to abrasion, marring and scratching. Its high-solids content allows for fewer application layers and faster drying times, making coatings more effective and cost-effective. Additionally, Turboset 5000HS offers sustainability benefits by reducing VOC emissions and lowering the carbon footprint associated with transportation.

High hardness without sacrificing abrasion.

Visit Turboset 5000HS Polyurethane Dispersion for product details or contact us to learn more about how Lubrizol can deliver an exceptional combination of sustainability and performance in water-borne coatings for wood floor applications through high-solids PUDs.

High-Solids PUDs: Performance and Sustainability in High-End Wood Coatings