What is Pot Life?

Pot life, also known as usable life or working time, refers to the period a thermosetting resin or adhesive, after the addition of a hardener or additive, remains workable. This duration ends when the system's viscosity rises to a point where it's no longer usable. Factors such as the type and amount of hardener, additives, and ambient temperature can affect pot life. This metric significantly impacts the applicability of coatings and the final performance of the cured coating layer. It's crucial to apply coatings within their pot life. Exceeding it alters the coating’s viscosity and performance. For instance, if a two-component coating is mixed and left too long before application, its viscosity increases, performance decreases, and it may even become unusable due to gelling.

Why is the Pot Life of Polyaspartic Polyurea Short?

Polyaspartic polyurea, whether used in coatings or adhesives, is a two-component material requiring a hardener. Its short pot life mainly results from the high reactivity of the polyaspartic resin's primary amine functional groups with isocyanate hardeners. While this grants polyaspartic polyurea rapid drying and low-temperature curing properties, it also leads to a shorter usable period.

Ways to Extend the Pot Life of Polyaspartic Polyurea:

1. Appropriately add diluents.
2. Partially replace fast-drying resins like F420 with slower-drying ones such as F520.
3. Avoid substances like water, hydroxyl, acid, and base in the coating system, as they can catalyze polyaspartic polyurea.
4. Adding molecular sieves is a standard and effective method.
5. Replace some fast-curing HDI trimer with slower-curing polyurethane prepolymers.
6. Bake pigment fillers to remove water.
7. Select different pigment fillers.

Feiyang has been specializing in the production of raw materials for polyaspartic coatings for 30 years and can provide polyaspartic resins, hardeners and coating formulations. Some of our polyaspartic coating formulations: Polyaspartic Coating

Feel free to contact us: marketing@feiyang.com.cn

Our products list:

• Polyaspartic Resin
• Isocyanate Hardener
• Special Chemical

Learn more polyaspartic knowledge: Polyaspartic FAQ