Patent ID: 7629394

Claim:
A process of preparing a UV curable coating material of microcapsules with an aqueous internal phase along with core material, the process comprising: providing an aqueous phase comprising a dissolved or dispersed core material: dissolving or dispersing wall-forming water-soluble or water-dispersible prepolymers, oligomers or monomers into the aqueous phase; providing a water-immiscible phase comprising a UV curable monomer or oligomer and at least one emulsifier; dispersing the aqueous phase into an excess of the water immiscible phase, nonreactive with the wall forming prepolymers, oligomers or monomers, under high shear agitation to form droplets of the aqueous phase dispersed in the water immiscible phase, a water-oil interphase resulting at the interphase of the aqueous and water-immiscible phases; then adding at least one water insoluble polycondensation polymerization catalyst reactive with the wall forming prepolymers, oligomers or monomers present in the aqueous phase; forming microcapsules by initiating polycondensation of the monomers, oligomers or prepolymers in the dispersed aqueous phase by heating to precipitate the monomers, oligomers and prepolymers from the aqueous phase at the water-oil interphase thereby forming wall material encapsulating the droplets of the aqueous phase; adding a UV free radical initiator to the water immiscible phase containing the formed microcapsules thereby forming a coating mixture, irradiating the coating mixture with ultra violet light to decompose the UV free radical initiator and to cure the UV-curable monomers or oligomers of the water immiscible phase thereby forming a cured coating containing the microcapsules having an encapsulated aqueous internal phase along with the core material.