EPOXY RESIN DILUENTS AND MODIFIERS

Cardolite’s line of cardanol-based non-reactive epoxy diluents are an effective way to reduce viscosity without the use of solvents. All cardanol derived grades carry the benefits of high hydrophobicity and therefore, excellent water resistance. Additionally, these diluents provide increased flexibility and impact resistance due to the long aliphatic chain in their backbone. Moreover, cardanol’s aromatic ring improves chemical resistance of those derivatives. Those combined properties help ensure our diluents have a positive effect on systems overall performance.

The Ultra LITE 2020 family is made of multi-purpose diluents that can also help lengthen gel time. The NX-202X line represents various cardanol grades suitable for use as diluents in various systems that include epoxy and polyurethane chemistries.  Furthermore, cardanol grades act as accelerators between epoxy resins and amines. Hence, they are suitable as nonyl phenol replacements.

Ultra LITE color cardanol grade, NX-2026, and Ultra LITE 2020 (UL 2020) can be excellent renewable and lower volatile alternatives to Benzyl Alcohol with appropriate adjustments in formulations to account for viscosity and cure properties differences. The graph on this page shows a comparison of dry hard times and gel times between benzyl alcohol, UL 2020, and NX-2026 as reference.

Cardolite LITE 2100(R) are low color and low viscosity CNSL modified hydrocarbon resins. They are designed to enable high solids and solvent free formulations by lowering the viscosity of epoxy resins more efficiently than typical phenol based hydrocarbon resins and by improving overall system compatibility for better film formation. These products show good hardness development while providing improved flexibility and impact resistance. Their high hydrophobicity results in excellent water resistance, and more importantly, excellent corrosion protection on immersed and vapor exposed surfaces. Both products show very good UV resistance with excellent gloss retention for use in lighter color coatings.

The Ultra LITE 513 family consists of monofunctional epoxy diluents that efficiently lower viscosity and can be excellent alternatives to traditional glycidyl ethers. NC-513 is the standard grade. Ultra LITE 513 is a higher purity, lower viscosity, very light color version of NC-513. LITE 513E is a very low total chlorine version of NC-513 suitable for electronic applications.

This line of cardanol-based reactive diluents is incorporated in the polymer network to minimize any effects on barrier protection. In addition, the good hydrophobicity, chemical and thermal resistance, and flexibility inherited from the cardanol backbone ensures good performance of the final epoxy system. This is illustrated on the graph on the right. It shows how the addition of NC-513 to liquid epoxy resin systems that were reacted with different epoxy curing agents improved water resistance (lower weight gains) at high temperature.