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Epoxy Viscosity, high or low?

lotuss79

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Apr 6, 2018
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Hi, im looking to do my first floor coating and am seeing low and medium viscosity epoxies available.
Are their specific pros and cons for lower vs higher viscosity?
Im specifically looking for the most "3 dimensional" effect possible, durability also being a concern, but secondary.
Any thoughts/experience would be appreciated. Thanks
 
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Shea

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Solids content of epoxy is what you want to pay attention to. The higher the solids content, the better the product (generally speaking). When using a high solids epoxy, it's best to also use an epoxy primer. This article explains why.

The lower solids products are generally what you find at your local home improvement centers. This would include brands like Rust-Oleum, Valspar, Quikrete, and etc. These type of epoxy kits are the easiest to install, but also the first to peel, develop hot tire pick up, and to wear out in a few years or so.

The newer single-part polyurea products are also very good and fast becoming the most popular DIY coating option. You can read about them here.
 

4xdog

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Shea, I don't really know what you mean by solids content in epoxy coatings. Maybe you can clarify?

Are you talking dispersed-phase solids, like pigments and mineral fillers? Or are you talking non-volatile content? There are many unfilled epoxies that are 100% "solids", of course.

Are you saying epoxy coatings from big-box stores have some sort of volatile solvent in the epoxy? I don't know the technology used here (although I've spent decades in polymer technology and coatings R&D), but there are plenty of ways someone could say "epoxy" in a coating. Some of those are nothing like a "real" epoxy coating binder -- it could be as simple as an epoxy-functional hardener added as a percent or two of a conventional coating binder for example.

Thanks for helping us understand exactly what "high solids epoxy" refers to so we can judge products appropriately.
 

Trey T

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To answer the question, viscosity of epoxy is critical if you do two things: 1) spray painting ; or 2) resin application. Otherwise, you're likely looking at the wrong product.

For flooring, people use typical paint roller, and viscosity (or density) isn't critical. However, to achieve a certain thickness per coat, density does matter and people called that percent% solids. The higher the percent%, the thicker (higher viscosity) it will lay to achieve the thickness per coat (unit is mil). Typically, the thicker it lays, the more durable it is.
 
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Shea

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In layman terms, the percentage of solids is the amount of product that remains on the surface after it has cured. As an example, big box stores sell the lower solids epoxy paint kits. These are usually just over 50% solids by weight. The remainder is made up of the carrier agents (water, solvents, and etc) that evaporate during the curing process. The amount of carrier agents help to increase the working pot life of epoxy. The more you have, the easier it is to apply and the longer time you have to work with it.

Kits such as these generally go down with a roller at a wet film thickness of 5-6 mils. Once the carrier agents evaporate, you are left with a dry film thickness of 2.5-3 mils.

100% solids epoxy has little to no carrier agents. It is generally applied with a roller at approximately 10 mils wet film thickness and cures to 10 mils wet film thickness. Of course the formulations for low solids vs high solids are different as well. These formulations also help to determine a coatings durability, abrasion resistance, resistance to chemicals, and etc.

Water based epoxy has low to no VOC's since the carrier agents are water soluble, solvent based epoxy typically has much higher VOC's (relatively speaking) since the carrier agents are solvents, and 100% solids epoxy has no to low VOC's since water or solvent is not being used as a carrier agent.

The data sheets for coating products are good indicators of what to expect from a coating. We have an article on how to read data sheets here.

In most cases, the quality of the product is related to the solids content. The higher the solids, the better performing the product.
 

4xdog

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To answer the question, viscosity of epoxy is critical if you do two things: 1) spray painting ; or 2) resin application. Otherwise, you're likely looking at the wrong product.

For flooring, people use typical paint roller, and viscosity (or density) isn't critical. However, to achieve a certain thickness per coat, density does matter and people called that percent% solids. The higher the percent%, the thicker (higher viscosity) it will lay to achieve the thickness per coat (unit is mil). Typically, the thicker it lays, the more durable it is.

Well... sort of...

Viscosity is the relationship between shear stress and shear rate. In simple terms, it's resistance to flow.

Density is the ratio of unit mass per unit volume of a material.

Percent solids is (usually) the weight of nonvolatile material using some defined drying conditions as a ratio to the starting weight of material. One can also define percent solids by volume than weight, but we'll stick to weight here.

While all three of these may be correlated for a given formulation, they are independent factors. One does not determine the other.

For example, one can have a coating with dispersed tiny microspheres (well known technology, in fact). These add a lot of volume but not much weight. They can affect visosity, will raise solids, but may lower coating density.

It's not automatic (to me as a coating scientist) that 100% solids coatings are by definition better than coatings with some sort of solvent added. It's much more complicated than that. Pigment to binder ratios, for example are critical to coating durability in a high wear environment and we haven't talked about that yet.

I'd rather judge coating quality by some objective measurement of the dried and/or cured coating film. Elasticity, tensile strength, abrasion resistance, sensitivity to various solvents, UV, temperature -- those kinds of things are better measures of how well a coating will hold up.
 

LegacyIndustrial

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Sweet Maria. I think Shea’s intention was to let the OP know which product might lend itself to a richer look.

He achieved his goal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Armorpoxy

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We always recommend checking your potential suppliers tech data for compression strength, abrasion resistance, etc as these will be good indicators of how well your coating will perform over time. Make sure to check the ratings on the protective topcoat since that's where the 'rubber hits the road', so the ratings of the epoxy don't matter as much.
 
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