Abstract:
The purpose of this research was to modify melamine formaldehyde resin and utilize it as an oligomer in ultraviolet curable coating formulation. Besides, the effects of diluent, photoinitiator, melamine formaldehyde and additive (wetting agent) toward coating film properties and energy consumption were also studied. The results showed that the suitable condition in modification was at reaction temperature of 600 C for 50 minutes. The modified resin was then incorporated with photoinitiators and diluents and found that the energy consumption in curing process reduced as the amount of photoinitiators increased. On the other hand, the energy consumption in curing process increased as the amount of diluents increased. However, the incorporation of diluents in coating formulations significantly enchanced thermal properties and physical properties of coating films relative to ones without diluents. The effect of the amount of melamine formaldehyde resin and wetting agent were studied. It was found that the energy consumption in curing process reduced as the amount of melamine formaldehyde resin increased. Moreover, as the amount of melamine formaldehyde resin increased, mar resistance increased. The formulations with wetting agent used higher energy in curing process than ones without wetting agent. However, addition of wetting agent in the formulation insignificantly improved physical properties of coating films.