Toughening of electron-beam cured acrylate resins

The aim of this study was to improve the toughness of EB-cured acrylate the rmost resins by using hyperbranched aliphatic polyesters as additives to ob tain a liquid-liquid phase-separated resin. The hyperbranched polyester can be considered as a hydroxyl functional scaffold, on which functional group s were reacted by control phase separation and crosslinking. Alkyl chains o f different lengths attached to the scaffold controlled phase separation. T he amount of crosslinking within the rubbery particle and between the parti cles and the matrix was set by the percentage of methacrylate groups. A goo d phase separation was obtained; therefore, T-g decreased only slightly com pared to the pure acrylate. The K-IC value of the cured resins was increase d by 30%. The phase-separated resins showed stability with time and no sign ificant increase in particle size was noticed after 18 months.