Mechanical, Thermal, and Electrical Characterization of Polyethylene Glycol and PDI‐Based Polyurethane Films for Durable Antistatic Applications

ABSTRACT Polyurethanes (PUs) are emerging materials, but the inferior mechanical strength, low thermal stability, poor solvent‐resistant ability and non‐conductive nature has limited their applications for advanced technology. The PU elastomer films based on polyethylene glycol (PEG) and 1,4‐phenyl diisocyanate (PDI) was prepared by step‐growth polymerization and curing method using different weight ratios of PDI (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2) at constant PEG weight content (1). The obtained PU films were tested for solvent‐resistant properties in both water and dichloromethane (DCM), which showed higher swelling ratios (SRs) and mass loss (%) in water confirming their improved stability in DCM. All the PU films exhibited amorphous characteristics and thermal stability until 403°C. The tensile strength, Young's modulus, and toughness was linearly increased from 2.83 to 25 ± 1 MPa, from 66 ± 2 to 868 ± 57 MPa and from 6.1 to 33.87 mJ/mm 3 , respectively, while elongation at break was reduced from 1323% to 291% with increasing PDI weight ratio from 0.5 to 2.0. The addition of different pyrrole (Py) amount from 4 to 12 mg to the PU film (PDI/PEG ≈ 1:1) has shown negative effect on the mechanical strength at higher Py content, while the surface resistivity ( ρ s ) was decreased from 5.30 × 10 8 to 2.5 × 10 8 Ω/sq. of the hybrid films with percolation threshold at ~4–8 wt.% Py loading. Therefore, the obtained PU/Py‐films with appropriate amount of Py have good solvent‐resistant ability, mechanical strength, thermal stability and antistatic properties, thus making them promising antistatic materials for future electronic and industrial applications.