Tailoring high anti-UV performance polypropylene based geotextiles with homogeneous waterborne polyurethane-TiO2 composite emulsions

Abstract Polypropylene (PP) geotextiles have a vital application value in high-cold frozen soil, high temperature and high humidity environment especially acidic/alkaline soil, however, solar radiation, especially ultraviolet (UV) radiations, is one of major factors responsible for their premature failure. Herein, we report a novel approach to synthesize high anti-UV performance PP geotextiles with enhanced mechanical properties. For this purpose, a highly stable composite emulsion was prepared by dispersing rutile TiO2 nanoparticles in deionized water and waterborne polyurethane (WPU) through a systematic optimization process. Afterwards, PP nonwoven was immersed in the optimized composite emulsion then padded and dried. Performance of WPU-TiO2 coated PP geotextiles was evaluated by accelerated weathering test, and coated geotextiles after 10 days of accelerating aging displayed an excellent UV-shielding performance by significantly alleviating the aging rate of PP geotextiles. Besides excellent anti-UV performance, WPU-TiO2 coated PP geotextiles also exhibited comparatively much higher residual breaking strength (52.44% in MD and 55.12% in CD) and residual breaking elongation (40.44% in MD and 42.19% in CD) than pristine PP geotextiles. This effective synthesis of high anti-UV shielding performance geotextiles opens new insights into the designing of new materials for development of efficient geotextiles.