High performance polyurethane elastomers using new cyclaliphatic diisocyanate

Trans-1,4-bis (isocyanatomethyl) cyclohexane (1,4-H₆XDI) has been newly developed as a novel cycloaliphatic diisocyanate with a high symmetric chemical structure. The PUEs were prepared with 1,4-H₆XDI, polyesterpolyol as a long chain polyol and 1,4-butanediol (BD) as a chain extender. As the representative aromatic and aliphatic diisocyanates, 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) and dicyclohexyl methane-4,4'-diisocyanate (H12MDI) were also used as the control. As a result, it was revealed that 1,4-H₆XDI-based PUEs achieved high elasticity such as higher impact resilience, lower compression set, improved heat resistant, and good light stability which was not able to be realized with the existing diisocyanates. The reason is explained that the hard segment chains of the 1,4-H₆XDI-based PUEs crystallized well with formation of hydrogen bonds in the PUEs due to the symmetric structure of 1,4-H₆XDI. Thus, the 1,4-H₆XDI-based PUEs can provide superior properties such as mechanical and thermal properties and excellent light stability compared to existing diisocyanate-based PUEs by rheological evaluation.