Synthetic resins or natural rubbers -- part of the class 520 ser – Synthetic resins – From carboxylic acid or derivative thereof
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-31
2001-08-21
Hampton-Hightower, P. (Department: 1711)
Synthetic resins or natural rubbers -- part of the class 520 ser
Synthetic resins
From carboxylic acid or derivative thereof
C528S170000, C528S310000, C528S322000, C524S059000, C524S700000, C524S705000, C524S904000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06277949
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coating composition whose main component is a polyamide resin (hereinafter referred to as “nylon” (trademark) and into which charcoal powder is composed. The composition is used as a material for an architecture, especially as a coating for an interior wall, an underfloor lining, a back lining of a ceiling and a closet.
2. Related Arts
An ordinary house, whether of a reinforced concrete or of wood, tends to be highly moist at a poorly ventilated part, undergoing a dewing and an associated early damage. To avoid this, a desiccant or a heat insulating material is placed or an air conditioning machine is installed.
However, a desiccant serves only to absorb moisture and becomes saturated soon, and thus requires to be replaced frequently. Furthermore, high moisture poses a further effort to combat with molds and hazardous insects.
Now, charcoal absorbs moisture when the atmospheric humidity becomes high, while releases moisture when the humidity becomes low, whereby exerting an ability of keeping the moisture content at about 55% in average, which is called a humidity-controlling effect.
In addition to the utility as a solid fuel, the charcoal shows an effect for keeping off mold, a pesticidal effect for combating with mites and termites and a deodorizing effect for adsorbing unpleasant odors such as ammonia and formaldehyde. Other various excellent properties of the charcoal were also found recently, such as an ability of attenuating electromagnetic waves generated from electrical appliances for domestic use and an air-cleaning effect which allows the negative ion level to be increased while capturing positive ions in the air, thus a wide-range application of the charcoal for the purpose of improving human health and living environment is investigated.
Accordingly, I considered that a building coating having an excellent property of charcoal can be obtained by mixing charcoal powder with a base coating of a synthetic resin and a solvent therefor, and then made an attempt to develop a coating containing charcoal powder.
The charcoal is a black porous material obtained by heating a wood such as evergreen oak or Japanese oak under reflux in the absence of air, and classified broadly into white charcoal with whity surface and black charcoal depending on difference mainly in the manufacturing process. A representative white charcoal is bincho charcoal originated from a raw lumber of holm oak, which is obtained by burning a wood at a temperature as high as 900 to 1400° C. and then pouring a mixture of a suitable amount of water, ash and soil onto the wood taken out from a furnace, whereby effecting a rapid cooling. On the other hand, black charcoal is obtained by burning miscellaneous woods including Japanese oak or other oaks at a temperature of 600 to 800° C., allowing to cool, and then taking them out of the furnace.
Since the charcoal has a microporous structure in its nature, it can readily be pulverized into microparticles having a size of 10 to 30 &mgr;m. In order to prepare a coating containing such charcoal microparticles, various resins, solvents and vehicles are admixed and a test for evaluating the practical utility was performed, and the results obtained were poor in general, because of a poor solubility in a solvent intrinsic to the charcoal. Thus, charcoal powder was attempted to be incorporated into various solvent-based coatings and water-based coatings, but a feasible coating could not be obtained, because of the problems such as difficulty in dispersing uniformly in a mixing step as well as an uneven color in a practical painting step.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Accordingly, an object of the invention is to provide a coating composition for building use which contains charcoal powder and is capable of exerting the properties of charcoal.
I have further studied and investigated for providing a coating composition for building use, with which the advantageous characteristics of charcoal described above can be utilized, and solved the problems described above and finally established the invention.
Namely, I have discovered that by composing charcoal powder into a base nylon resin coating, it is possible to mix the charcoal powder uniformly with the base coating and to prepare a coating which shows no unevenness in the color of the finished surface. Furthermore, it was also discovered that a nylon resin coating composition containing the charcoal powder at a suitable ratio has the characteristics of a nylon resin together with the characteristics of charcoal.
When a nylon resin film is applied to the interior wall or other region of a building, it allows an excessive water or moisture enclosed in a wall to be released slowly to the outer space, because of its moisture permeability, whereby keeping an appropriate humidity.
In a coating composition according to the invention, a nylon resin for the base nylon resin coating means a copolymeric nylon obtained by using &egr;-caprolactam, hexamethylene diamine, adipic acid and sebacic acid, or a copolymeric nylon obtained by using &egr;-caprolactam, hexamethylene diamine, adipic acid, sebacic acid, &ohgr;-laurolactam and &ohgr;-aminododecanoic acid, as starting materials.
In a coating composition according to the invention, the charcoal content is 1 to 50% by weight based on the base nylon resin coating. In the charcoal to be composed into the base nylon resin which is prepared by disolving the copolymeric nylon in a solvent, the ratio of white charcoal to black charcoal may be selected as desired. Thus, since white charcoal has excellent air-cleaning effect and electromagnetic wave-attenuating effect, while black charcoal has excellent moisture-controlling effect, anti-bacterial effect and insect-repelling effect, these effects may be taken into consideration to determine the ratio of the white charcoal to the black charcoal.
The solvent for the copolymeric nylon may be ethanol, n-propanol, i-propanol, butanol, i-butanol, benzylalcohol, laurylalcohol, diacetone, cyclohexanol and triethanolamine as well as a mixture thereof.
A reason why a copolymeric nylon resin is selected as a nylon resin in a coating composition of the invention is that a physical characteristic in common with the nylon resins having reduced crystallinities has the solubility in water or alcohols, which serves to increase the affinity with, the enclosure in and the adhesiveness to charcoal.
A main solvent for a resin component described above is preferably an aliphatic monohydric alcohol having 1 to 4 carbon atoms (especially, methanol, ethanol and propanol) and a mixture thereof, while an auxiliary agent for controlling the time period required for drying a coating film is preferably a monohydric alcohol having 1 or 2 ether bonds in its molecule and also having a suitable volatilizability, such as methylcellosolve, ethylcellosolve, propylcellosolve (normal, iso, secondary or tertiary), butylcellosolve, methylcarbitol, ethylcarbitol, diethylene glycol monomethylether as well as a mixture thereof with an aliphatic monohydric alcohol listed above.
In addition to those listed above, a chlorine-based solvent or a phenolic solvent may also be used for a nylon, but the former is difficult to use in view of environmental issues, while the latter is not preferred because of an extremely slow drying and an yellowing of a coated film as a result of a formation of quinone structure in response to the exposure of the residual solvent in the film to ultraviolet ray. Those not suitable as a solvent for preparing a coating composition of this invenstion because of a reduced solubility in a part or all of the resin components are an aromatic solvent such as benzene, toluene, xylene and the like, a ketone-based solvent such as acetone, methylethylketone, methylisobutylketone and the like, an ether-based solvent such as diethylether, diisopropylether and the like, an aliphatic hydrocarbon-based solvent such as n-hexane, n-heptane, i-octane, methylpentane, cyclohexane and the like.
REFER
Arent Fox Kintner & Plotkin & Kahn, PLLC
Hampton-Hightower P.
LandOfFree
Coating compositions does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Coating compositions, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Coating compositions will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2517935