The Waterborne Symposium 2025

Abstract

Agricultural biomass raw materials are plentiful and a sustainable source of raw materials. Importantly, the physical and chemical conversion of agricultural residues to useful organic building blocks is often limited in utility by lower than preferred physical and chemical conversion efficiency. We chemically modified high purity cellulose with additional natural products to explore the utility of organic-solvent soluble cellulose based polymers in a single reaction step. The resulting biobased materials were formulated into practical surface coatings and were evaluated for material characteristics, formulation variables, solubility, film formation, and film performance. Each solvent based, waterborne, and powder coatings were produced and evaluated using the novel sustainable materials. Key parameters: solvent content versus time after application, optical clarity, film formation, solids content, rheological characteristics, and cursory thermoset testing for crosslink density were each compared with high performance petroleum based systems. The solvent based modified cellulosic formulations were further evaluated comparing rheology, film formation, wetting, adhesion, and optical clarity when formulated with conventional solvents (MEK and Toluene) with biomass derived VOC-exempt solvents with and without isocyanate crosslinkers. The formulation details and variables, the coatings characteristics, and the performance were each evaluated and compared to several commercial petroleum based coatings as we begin to understand the modified cellulosic-materials utility.