New Polyurea Coating for Roofing and Waterproofing

Yulee, Florida – February 9, 2010 - SoyThane Technologies Inc. of Yulee Florida is proud to introduce one of its newest products, ExpandoThane, a foaming Polyurea elastomer.

Tom Hay, Technical Advisor for SoyThane Technologies Inc. had this to say, “I have had the privilege of being involved in the Spray Urethane Foam and Multi Component Industry for just over 40 years now. I am proud and can truly state I have never seen more potential for a product then ExpandoThane.

I started fooling with some new chemistry called Rim Spray which many consider first generation Polyurea back in the early 1980’s. Like any new products there needed to be some tweaks done. In the mid 1980’s the first new generation Polyureas were introduced. First to me it was like a product without a home. It crept into the Bed Liner market, taking it by storm and I recently remember reading that today there are over 2,000 uses for Polyurea.

ExpandoThane targets two key industry segments: Roofing and Waterproofing. While creating the ExpandoThane formulation we decided to formulate it to improve on two flaws we saw with today’s Polyurea. The first was Polyurea as a general rule depends on a primer for adhesion. To us this was a costly and time consuming step leaving the contractors with too short a window of opportunity to apply the Polyurea without having to reprime. We also saw that primers could actually cause blisters by applying the Polyurea too soon. ExpandoThane to date gets a tenacious bite to Modified Bitumen, Urethane Foam, Polystyrene, Metal and concrete to name a few.

The next concern was Polyurea usually cannot fill pinholes or Bug holes which again meant more cost and time. I forget exactly who, but someone suggested if we could get it to expand like spray urethane foam that would eliminate the problem. That day it was laughed at but the more we thought, the better it sounded. Next came the balancing act. Expansion and elongation. This is what took the most time. In my early years 300% elongation was like the magic number. We came to make a number of formulations that exceeded this number and even got to the point you could lay down 1” in a small pass. This however created more of a sponge type Polyurea. After near what seemed endless formulations and tests we finally got it narrowed down to a Polyurea that would expand 5 – 7 times its volume and pass a hailstone test. We then needed a color. It was decided that we go with green as a symbol of the SoyThane name. We found an interesting side effect during the color change Aromatic Polyurea goes through. It changed to a whitish yellow, probably whiter than a typical acrylic coating on a flat roof after it aged a little.

Our main targeted markets at this time are over Metal, Modified Bitumen and Spray Urethane Foam. We also picture ExpandoThane to be great for waterproofing foundation walls before back filling them. We have also developed a version that gives like a stucco look for over concrete and Structural Insulated Panel walls. It is like putting a seamless, insulated, thick continuous expansion joint over all recommended surfaces.”