Process for a preparing a coating composition

An easily hardenable acrylic coating composition is prepared with low energy electron beams to develop a surface coating process without requiring solvents, and which may be widely applied by industry. The process comprises dissolving a polymer with a molecular weight in the 5,000 to 500,000 range in a monomer consisting of at least 30% by weight of acrylic monomer and 70% by weight of other vinyl monomers. The polymer is obtained by the polymerization of 1 to 40% by weight of vinyl monomer containing carboxyl radicals, 30 to 99% by weight of methacrylic monomer and 0 to 69% by weight of other copolymerizable vinyl monomers. Then, one mole of carboxyl radical of the solution reacts with 0.1 to 1.0 mole of vinyl monomer containing a glycidyl radical. In an embodiment, 17.5% by weight of methacrylate are dissolved in 82.5% of alkyl acrylate and undergo suspension polymerization in water in the presence of a catalyst to produce a beads-like polymer of molecular weight in the 5,000 to 500,000 range. Thereafter, 120 parts of the beads-like polymer are dissolved in 180 parts of acrylic monomer in the presence of a polymerization inhibitor. To this solution are added 22 parts of glycidyl methacrylate to react with carboxyl radicals, thereby obtaining non-solvent coating materials which contain the side chain vinyl radicals in the polymer. The acceleration voltage of the electron beams employed in the polymerization is generally 0.1 to 2.0 MeV. The dose rate to harden the coatings is in the range of 0.1 to 2.0 Mrad/sec. (Iwakiri, K.)