Photocrosslinkable modified vegetable oil based resin for wood surface coating application

An acrylated epoxidized linseed oil (AELO) was synthesized from epoxidized linseed oil through ring opening of the oxirane group using acrylic acid as ring opening agent. The occurrence of the acrylate group and the ring opening of oxirane group was monitored using FT-IR spectroscopy. The AELO was mixed with three different photoinitiators at two different concentrations. Wood surfaces were coated with the mixtures, subsequently cured under UV light and the resulting surface properties of the coated samples gloss, scratch resistance, solvent resistance, and coating adhesion were characterized. The efficiency of the photoinitiators and the influence of their concentration on the rate and the extent of the curing were studied by curing the AELO mixtures under a monochromatic wavelength of 365 nm and measuring absorption spectra during the cure by real time FT-IR spectroscopy. The decrease of absorption in the measured spectra at 1406 cm−1 was used to calculate the conversion of acrylic double bonds with increasing time of UV light exposure to obtain information on the cure kinetics for each photoinitiator and concentration.