Preparation of UV-curable transparent poly(urethane acrylate) nanocomposites with excellent UV/IR shielding properties

Due to the great potential applications, high transparent organic–inorganic nanocomposites have attracted wide attention over past decade. However, it is still a challenge to maintain the transparency of optical materials due to the light scattering caused by the severely aggregation of nanoparticles (NPs) when they are introduced into the polymer matrix. In this report, we describe the preparation of UV-curable transparent poly(urethane acrylate) (PUA) nanocomposites with 3-(trimethoxysilyl)propylmethacrylate (MPS) modified ITO NPs. The FTIR and TGA results confirmed that the MPS was grafted to the surface of ITO NPs successfully. It was found that the incorporation of ITO NPs not only provided UV shielding ability to the nanocomposite coatings with the similar transparency of the pure PUA, but also exhibited low transmittance of near-infrared (NIR) light. And, the cutoff wavelength of the composites in NIR range (800–2500 nm) shifts toward the lower wavelength as ITO concentration increasing. The transmittance of the nanocomposite coatings with 0 wt.%, 1 wt.%, 3 wt.%, 5 wt.%, 7 wt.% and 9 wt.% of the ITO NPs at 1500 nm in the NIR region are 91%, 56%, 38%, 31%, 18% and 6%, respectively.