Patent ID: 8021586

Claim:
A process for preparing a curable solid resin powder coating composition comprising the steps of: (I) melt blending the following components to form a molten modified resin: (a) a solid epoxy resin; and (b) an amphiphilic block copolymer, wherein the amphiphilic block copolymer is an amphiphilic polyether block copolymer containing at least one epoxy resin miscible block segment and at least one epoxy resin immiscible block segment: wherein the miscible block segment of the amphiphilic block copolymer comprises at least one polyether structure; wherein the immiscible block segment of the amphiphilic block copolymer comprises at least one polyether structure provided that the polyether structure of said immiscible block segment contains at least one or more alkylene oxide monomer units having at least four carbon atoms; (II) solidifying the molten modified resin of step (I) to form a solid resin; (III) reducing the solid modified resin of step (II) to a powdered material; (IV) feeding a mixture of (a) the powder material of step (III), (b) at least one nitrogen-containing curing agent, and an epoxy resin into an extruder; (V) extruding the mixture of step (IV) through the extruder to form a molten reaction mixture; and (VI) solidifying the molten reaction mixture of step (V) to form a final curable solid resin powder coating composition; wherein the amphiphilic block copolymer is present in the composition in an amount of from about 0.1 weight percent to about 15 weight percent based on the weight of the composition; and such that when the epoxy resin composition is cured, the toughness of the resulting cured epoxy resin composition is increased compared to that of a control; and wherein a templated thermoset epoxy polymer composition with a nanoscale self-assembled morphology is formed.