Two of the tenets of the Ohio Soybean Council’s (OSC) strategic plan are driving innovation and expanding markets. Through its partnership with Polynt-Reichhold, OSC is doing just that. The collaboration between Polynt-Reichhold — a global supplier of resin polymers for paints and coatings — and the Ohio Soybean Council started in May 2015 when Polynt-Reichhold received funding for the development of an improved stain-blocking resin for restoration and tannin applications.

This year, with additional support from the Ohio soybean checkoff, Polynt-Reichhold was able to develop a new water-borne soybean oil-modified urethane for wood flooring applications. The resin, otherwise known as UROTUF® F108-T8W-45 was successfully introduced at the 2018 American Coatings Show in April. Currently, the resin is being evaluated by numerous Polynt-Reichhold customers that plan to develop it into a varnish for wood floor coatings. First end-user sales of the product are expected later this year.

“With the support and grants provided by the Ohio Soybean Council, companies like Polynt-Reichhold have been able to accelerate their research and development efforts by dedicating additional resources to these types of projects — from product development to application testing and finally to product promotion,” said Scott Cooley, Coatings R&D Manager at Polynt-Reichhold.

In the past, solvent-borne products have dominated the wood floor coating industry. “Solvent-borne oil modified urethanes are the dominant product used in the wood flooring market, but there is a market need for better waterborne oil modified urethanes,” Cooley explained. “The existing oil modified water-borne urethane products are low solids and thus require multiple coats, which in turn increases the amount of time needed by contractors to achieve the desired finished film thickness.” The new soybean oil modified resin is high solids, allowing consumers to finish their flooring projects faster. It is also self-crosslinking, which allows the finished product to be harder and more resistant to scuffs and mars.

The new resin is also considered low VOC. VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, are gases that can be emitted from certain liquids, like urethane coatings. VOCs can be harmful to health, with symptoms like eye and respiratory tract irritation, headaches, dizziness, visual disorders and memory impairment occurring after VOC exposure. To combat this, government regulations are requiring lower and lower VOC levels. Conventional solvent-borne oil modified urethanes have a VOC content over 450 g/L. The new resin developed by Polynt-Reichhold has a VOC content of just 95 g/L, making it much safer for consumers and flooring specialists.

“The market continues to grow as environmental regulations force coatings to be more environmentally friendly without a sacrifice in performance,” Cooley said. “As a result, sales of low VOC  coatings that contain lower levels of solvent will continue to displace sales of higher VOC solvent-borne products.”

The resin is also NMP-free. NMP, also known as N-Methylpyrrolidone, is a solvent that has been linked to developmental hazards. UROTUF® F108-T8W-45 is the first high solids, low VOC, NMP-free water-borne oil modified urethane to be introduced in the market.

While soybean oil has been used for about 50 years in conventional oil modified urethanes, competitive polyurethane dispersions and acrylics in this market do not contain soybean oil. “We firmly believe that UROTUF® F108-T8W-45 has superior performance to alternate approaches and should maintain soybean oils’ status as a viable and preferred raw material source for this type of product for years to come,” Cooley said.