TY - GEN A1 - Scholz, Philipp T1 - Degradation of polyurethanes in various environments – Effects on molecular mass and crosslinking N2 - The increasing application of polyurethanes (PU) in safety relevant sectors (fire protection, insulation, medicine technique) requires detailed knowledge of the stability and reliability of these materials. Different climate factors are supposed to induce diverse and overlapping degradation reactions. The knowledge of these degradation mechanisms is necessary for an estimation of the period of application depending on usage of the material. An essential property of a polymeric system is represented by the molecular weight. Since a change of the molecular weight is a measure for the chemical stability of a polymer, size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) was used to monitor changes of the molecular weight of thermoplastic polyether- and polyester urethane (TPU) exposed to thermal, hydrolytic and photo-oxidative (UV) degradation conditions for several days. Thermal treatments were performed at elevated temperatures (100 - 200 °C) under oxidative (air) as well as non-oxidative (nitrogen) conditions to evaluate the specific influence of oxygen on the degradation. At higher temperatures (≥ 175 °C) a fast decrease of the molecular masses of both PU accompanied by a high degree of crosslinking was found. At lower temperatures (≤ 150 °C) the polymers remained widely unaffected by thermal degradation within the investigated degradation interval of up to two weeks, which was already known from FTIR spectroscopy[1]. In contrast to that, UV treatment at 25 °C at less than 10 % rel. humidity (RH) resulted in a fast crosslinking, whereas the molecular masses of both PU decreased slower than during the thermal treatments. The depth of penetration of the UV radiation was determined using 3D printed PU samples with different thicknesses. Hydrolysis based degradation effects were less significant. Only slight molecular mass changes were detected at temperatures ≤ 80 °C within a time span of 14 days, while no crosslinking could be measured. Considering the degradation results at the investigated exposure parameters, it could be shown that ester-based PU in general exhibits a significant higher stability compared to ether-based materials. T2 - ANAKON 2019 CY - Münster, Germany DA - 25.03.2019 KW - Polyurethane KW - Thermal degradation KW - UV degradation KW - Molecular masses KW - Crosslinking PY - 2019 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/47957 AN - OPUS4-47957 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany