Synthesis And Properties Of Water Based Acrylic Laser Transfer Film For Hot Stamping

Due to the beautiful appearance and excellent performance, the hot stamping foil has attracted more and more attentions in the areas of packaging materials. The laser transfer film as one of hot stamping foils is considered as the high level products I and the technical requirements for the fabrication of laser transfer films are stricted. Currently, the solvent-based resin is widely used as the core information layer in the laser transfer film, However, the solvent-based resin has the disadvantages of high cost and the pollution of environments. Therefore, the environmentally-friendly resin as the core information layer in the laser transfer film is promising for future market. The core information layer of laser transfer films with good performance can be formed by suitable choice of acrylic monomers.In this study, the formulation of water-based acrylic emulsion resin and the following molding tests to the coating membrane have been investigated in details. Inintially, based on the requirements of the laser transfer film, the choice of methyl methacrylate (MMA), butyl acrylate (BA ), acrylic acid (AA) as the basic monomers for the copolymerization was determined. MMA as the backbone in the polymer structure can improve the overall cohesive strength and temperature resisitantce of polymer; aiming at the requirements of film forming, the content of soft monomer of BA has been determined in the range of 35 ~ 45 mass% which can guarantee not only a good forming film properties but the good anti-stick property during coating and rolling process. Based on the study of aziridine curing agent content and the molding effect, the content of AA has been settled as 6 mass%. The hybrid emulsion and initiating systems have been established. Macromolecular emulsifier is deliberately synthesized with acrylic acid and N-hydroxymethyl acrylamide and it was used for the soap-free polymerization of acrylic latex. The results showed that the acrylic latex had good mechanical and chemical stability.Synthetic acrylic latex has good dilution stability, coating and the stability of finished leveling. The effect of the aluminum coating was tested after the molding, and the results demonstrated that the aluminum layer with normal emulsifier system appeared opaqe or even white, which can not meet production needs. However, when the synthesized macromolecular emulsifier was used, aluminium can show good appearence. The infrared spectroscopy characterized the polymer and differential scanning calorimetry investigated the solidification. The coating layer after molding was tested by the atomic force microscope and scanning electron microscopy detection for observing the morphology evolution.