Surface analysis and anti-graffiti behavior of a weathered polyurethane-based coating embedded with hydrophobic nano silica

In this study, a permanent anti-graffiti polyurethane coating was prepared using concomitant loading of an OH-functional silicone modified polyacrylate additive ranging from 2 to 15 mol% and hydrophobic silica nanoparticles from 1 to 5 wt%. UV–visible spectroscopy, contact angle measurement and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) analysis were conducted on selected samples to study the weathering performance of samples containing various amounts of silica nanoparticles before and after accelerated weathering conditions. The results showed that higher amounts of additive had inferior effects on the anti-graffiti performance of the coating samples after exposure. However, silica nanoparticles could positively affect the anti-graffiti performance against ageing cycles. This improvement was attributed to lower degradation of samples containing silica nanoparticles and barrier property of nanoparticles against graffiti penetration. The presence of silica nanoparticles did not have any significant effect on the surface free energy of the samples prior and after ageing.