Comparing Resins

“I am looking at your coating machine as well as your competitors. One uses polyurethane resin, one uses epoxy resin, and you use poly urea resin. I’m a little confused as to which way to go. Can you tell me why your resin, the poly urea stuff, is better than the others? Also, isn’t poly urea an abbreviation of polyurethane – aren’t they the same thing?”

  • When we developed our coating process we tested many resin formulations. We tested epoxy, a very good resin system that is used in the lateral CIPP process. Two things became apparent in our testing of this resin.
    • The first was epoxy, when cured by itself, becomes very brittle. In the CIPP process the tube material services the purpose of holding the resin in place till it’s cured, but also adds the dynamic of providing a more flexible finished composite.
    • The second issue we tried to overcome was finding a formulation that cured very quickly. The formulations we tested tended to pool toward the bottom of the pipe on the horizontal plane and developed drips on the vertical plane.
  • Polyurethane and poly urea are similar resins.  However, the polyurethane had a couple of negative characteristics, while the negative characteristic of the poly urea was actually positive for this application.
    • Poly urea tends to cure very quickly and therefore isn’t very friendly for use when trying to adjust where it’s placed or when it cures. It is a very durable product and resists breaking and abrasion. This characteristic is very useful when applying it as a coating in sewer piping.
    • Polyurethane is a much more flexible material but doesn’t perform well when applied in a damp condition such as a sewer pipe-it expands and foams. It also doesn’t resist abrasion, which you may find in sewer piping with grit and other abrasives flushed down sewer drains.

So that’s how we aligned our Quik-Coating system with the resin we use.

For more information, contact us at Pipe Lining Supply Corporation at 888-354-6464, +1-714-630-6311, or email us at info@pipeliningsupply.com.  

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