2005 PMA Annual Meeting planned.

The Polyurethane Manufacturers Association will hold its 2005 PMA Annual Meeting April 17-19 at the Rancho Las Palmas Marriott Resort & Spa in Rancho Mirage, CA. The meeting theme is "Keys to the future of polyurethane."

Richard A. Segal, Jr., chief executive officer of HSR Business to Business, will present a keynote address on "The industrial marketer's playbook." This presentation will share lessons learned from a 25-year career focused on industrial marketing, and will offer a practical approach to promoting industrial products and services.

A second keynote address on "Improving polyurethane performance with additives: A roundtable discussion," will be presented by Scott Archibald, an applications development chemist with Crompton. This talk will focus on overcoming specific material deficiencies in castable polyurethane elastomers through the use of additives.

Archibald, along with Amy Clement of Crompton, will discuss property modifiers such as antistats, plasticizers, lubricants, composites and colorants. The presenters will also look at processing aids such as catalysts, surfactants and degassing agents.

Technical presentations will include "Pultrusion of fast-gel thermoset polyurethanes: Processing considerations and mechanical properties," by Harry D. Coffee, Nautilus Composites LLC. When compared to the matrix resins that are currently dominant in pultrusion, polyurethanes are said to offer a range of properties that are generally equal or superior. However, the industries that manufacture large quantities of polyurethanes (such as cushioning and energy-management foams) employ processing technologies that are considered extremely difficult to adapt to composites production.

Two significant barriers were identified for pultruding polyurethane resins, including the fast gel times of the raw materials when mixed and the tendency of the chemistry to produce internal voids in the material during gel and cure. The research described in this paper presents the processing technologies and methods developed that allow high-speed production of high-quality polyurethane pultrusions.

"Advances in Ribbon Flow technology" will be presented by Audrey R. Emanuel, Crompton. Ribbon Flow encompasses a process and system for the application of polyurethane elastomers to rolls or other cylindrical objects without the need for a mold. It requires a customized chemical system, as well as specialized processing equipment for proper operation. Advantages to processors are said to include shorter turnaround times, lowered labor costs, waste and overbuild reduction, and time and energy conservation, since no post cure is required.

Advances in Ribbon Flow technology in recent years, described in this presentation, include improvements in physical properties, dynamic properties and application method, which now makes it possible to apply very thick layers of urethane with a single pass of the mix head.

"Update and overview of polyurea spray technology and new amine chain extenders useful in polyurethane systems" will be presented by Mark L. Posey, Huntsman, LLC. Polyurea spray coatings are said to be a relatively new technology and have been evolving rapidly, even in just the last live years. An overview of polyurea spray technology, both aromatic and aliphatic, will be given to update the listener on current practices.

The basics of formulating polyurea coatings will be presented, along with some starting formulations and typical properties. New products and how they have changed polyurea coatings will be addressed.

Many new amine raw materials are said to be becoming available from chemical suppliers. While they are typically used in pure polyurea, there are many applications where amines can be used in polyurethane materials. Examples and suggestions will be given on how amines can be used to improve properties or processing characteristics of polyurethane materials.

"Using a carbon nanotube additive to enhance the structural properties of polyurea," will be presented by Marni Rutkofsky, Zyvex. This research demonstrates that the Zyvex technology platform, KenteraT, successfully transfers the intrinsic mechanical properties of the nanotubes to the polyurea.

Homogeneous carbon nanotube/polyurea composites were fabricated with non-covalently dispersed single-wall and multi-wall carbon nanotubes. All CNT/PU films showed higher tensile modulus, yield stress and fracture stress than neat PU, and these parameters increased as the nanotube concentration increased. Most composites displayed higher strain to failure than pure PU. The addition of nanotubes into the PU is said to have resulted in remarkable reinforcement and toughness improvement simultaneously.

"Making the most out of the VNC" will be presented by Eric Sheard, Lescon. The vibrating needle curemeter (VNC) and its scanning and foam variants are said to be well established in quality assurance roles for monitoring and archiving the cure profile of reactive liquid systems. And when the system is polyurethane, continuous monitoring from start to the end of cure is usually possible. Such comprehensive cure profiling is said to reveal hitherto inaccessible detail, to benefit quality control, system development and process optimization.

Further information on the 2005 PMA Annual Meeting is available from the PMA [phone].