Polyurethane elastomers were the first products to find wide commercial use in the RIM process. Recently, the advent of a new chain extender, diethyltoluenediamine (DETDA), provided a new class of commercially useful RIM elastomers. These materials are best classified as polyurethane/urea elastomers. We have been working on the next logical step in this evolution: amine-terminated polyether resins with amine chain extenders. These are best classified as polyurea elastomers.
Amine-terminated polyether resins, or polyether polyamines, replace the polyol in a RIM formulation. These materials are much more reactive than polyols. Thus, these products can be tailored to meet the performance requirements of a particular end use more easily than polyols.
Two major applications in which these materials have been technically successful are fascia internal mold release and reinforced RIM. In this paper some of the general aspects of using these polyamines will be given as well as some of the specific reasons for using them in the two applications mentioned above.