GB2029726A - Floor and wall coverings - Google Patents

Abstract

Inferior quality decorative cushioned vinyl wall or floor covering material containing glass fibres is comminuted and softened, additional inorganic particulate material is included into the mass and the mass is sheeted and used as a substrate for a floor or wall covering comprising a decorative opaque surface layer.

Description

SPECIFICATION Floor and wall coverings This invention relates to the reuse of inferior quality decorative cushioned vinyl wall or floor coverings. Such products comprise a vinyl layer which is foamed but the top of which is continuous, the foamed layer generally containing reinforcing fibres or being carried on a support of reinforcing fibres, and there is often a wear resistant layer over the continuous top of the foamed layer.

Floor coverings and heavy wall coverings, i.e.

wall coverings of the type that resemble floor coverings, need wear resistance, decorative appearance, bulk and dimensionai stability. Bulk and dimensional stability is generally provided by the provision of a substrate specifically designed for this purpose.

We have described in our British Patent Specification No. 1,500,510 floor or wall coverings comprising a decorative opaque surface bonded to a sheet backing which is either rejected decorative cushioned vinyl wall or floor covering (as defined above) or is a sheet obtained by comminuting and softening such wall of floor covering and forming the resultant mass into a sheet.

According to that specification decorative cushioned vinyl floor or wall covering is made, the product is inspected, and inferior quality material is rejected, and a decorative opaque surface layer is bonded to the rejected material or to a sheet formed from a mass obtained by comminuting and softening the rejected material. As described in that Specification, the opaque surface layer may be fibrous or of an opaque plastics material.

We have described in our British Application 1649/77 (corresponding to German P2801228.4) a floor or wall covering comprising an embossed cushioned vinyl surface layer bonded to a sheet backing which has been obtained by comminuting and softening rejected decorative cushioned vinyl wall or floor covering material and forming the resultant mixture into the sheet. It was described in that specification that from 5 to 20%, by weight based on the weight of reject material, of reinforcing material such as glass, cellulose or polyester fibres, could be included in the mixture obtained by comminution and softening. We also described that additional polymeric material could be added to the mixture.

There have been many proposals to make decorative cushioned vinyl wall or floor coverings containing glass fibres, for instance either as reinforcement within the foamed layer or as the, or part of the, fibrous component of a substrate carrying the foamed layer.

When the sheet material that is to be comminuted does have glass fibre reinforcement it has surprisingly been found that the sheet substrate finally obtained does not have optimum properties for use as a substrate of floor or wall coverings, especially those in which the opaque surface layer is of a vinyl resin, but that this deficiency can be cured if inorganic particular filler is incorporated into the softened mass.

Floor or wall covering according to the invention comprises a decorative opaque surface layer bonded to a substrate comprising a sheet which has been made by sheeting a mass that includes 30 to 75% by weight inorganic particulate filler comprising comminuted glass fibres and that has been made by a process comprising comminuting and softening rejected decorative cushioned vinyl wall or floor covering material that includes glass fibres.

A method according to the invention of making a floor or wall covering comprises making decorative cushioned vinyl floor covering containing glass fibres, inspecting this, rejecting inferior quality material, comminuting and softening the rejected material and incorporating sufficient additional inorganic particulate material that the resultant mass contains 30 to 75% by weight inorganic particulate material, forming the mass into a sheet and bonding the opaque layer to a substrate comprising this sheet.

Thus in the invention the sheet that is used as part or all of the substrate contains inorganic particulate material part of which is provided by glass that was present in the initially produced material as glass fibre reinforcement and part of which is provided by additional inorganic particulate material that is incorporated into the mass.

To increase the stability of the sheet it may be desirable to arrange for the final mass to contain fibrous reinforcement, by appropriate additions of small amounts, e.g. 5 to 20% and preferably 7 to 1 5%, of polyester or other fibrous material that will remain in a fibrous state. Alternatively, the substrate may be made by laminating the sheet to a stabilising scrim such as a non-woven glass fibre tissue or glass/synthetic or natural fibre tissue. The stabilising scrim may be adhered to one surface of the reconstituted sheet, or sandwiched between two such sheets. Suitable scrims are described in British Patent Specification No. 1,532,621 and application 7910821.

Preferably polymeric material is incorporated into the mass before sheeting, this generally having the particular advantage of causing the resultant substrate sheet to have a smoother surface. This additional polymer may be incorporated into the mass either after softening of all the particles or before softening or may be comminuted with the sheet material and softened into the mass. The additional polymer is generally a vinyl polymer, for example a vinyl chloride pblymer. The amount added is generally below 30% by weight, usually 5 to 25% and preferably 10 to 20%, e.g. 15 vÓ by weight of the mass. These weights are of the polyvinyl chloride or other polymer composition incorporating any plasticiser that is initially present in it.

The highly viscous mass containing comminuted fibres, added filler, vinyl resin from the initial sheet material and optionally additional vinyl resin may be sheeted by use of, for example, calender rolls to form the final substrate and if desired a layer free of fibres, for instance consisting solely of polymer (generally a vinyl chloride polymer) and plasticiser may be applied over the sheet material in order to improve its surface properties.

The sheet, and the total substrate will generally have a thickness of 0.3 to 7 mm, preferably 0.5 to 2.5 mm e.g. about 1 mm and a weight of from 530 to 2000 g/m2, preferably about 670 to 1 700 g/m2, e.g. about 1400 g/m2.

As described in British Application 1649/77 the opaque surface layer that is bonded to the sheet may be a fibrous product preferably a non-woven product, for example tufted, flocked or needled.

Suitable fibrous layers are 1 to 10 usually 1 to 5 mm thick and generally weigh from 10 to 1000, preferably 100 to 500 g/m2, They may be bonded to the substrate by fusion of the surface of the sheet and/or by the use of an adhesive, for instance a hot melt adhesive. Suitable materials and methods are described in Application 1649/77.

Preferably, however, the opaque surface layer comprises a layer of a vinyl resin and a pigmented decoration and wear layer. The vinyl resin layer may be non-foamed but preferably it is foamed. It may be preformed and then laminated to the substrate sheet, e.g. by fusion or an adhesive but preferably is formed in situ on the sheet. Thus when the layer of vinyl resin is to be a foamed resin it is preferably bonded to the substrate sheet by depositing a layer of foamable resin on the substrate and subsequently foaming the layer, generally after printing pigmented decoration on to it and applying wear layer material, the application of the pigmented decoration and the wear layer being by conventional methods. The wear layer may be of vinyl resin or of a polyurethane.

The foamable material in the opaque surface layer is preferably provided with an embossed profne.This may be provided by mechanically embossing the foamed layer after foaming, for example to give a random overall emboss effect in known manner, or by incorporating inhibitor for foaming in known manner or by printing differently foamable compositions in known manner.

The total weight of foamable composition, pigmented composition and wear layer applied over the substrate is generally from 200 to 1 000 g/m2, most preferably about 600 g/m2. The maximum thickness after foaming of the foamed layer and wear layer is preferably from 0.3 to 2.5 mm, most preferably about 1.0 mm.

The final sheet may be used in sheet form or may be cut into tiles. Products of the invention have the particular merit that their substantially uniform distribution of plasticiser throughout their thickness means that they have much lower tendency to curl than many conventional substrates coated with a vinyl chloride resin layer.

The following are some examples of the invention.

EXAMPLE 1 A decorative embossed cushioned vinyl sheet material is made containing glass fibre reinforcement. Thus a glass tissue weighing 30 grams per square metre may be impregnated with vinyl resin as described in British Patent Specification No. 1,532,621 or application 7910821 in an amount of about 200 grams per square metre and a cushioned vinyl floor covering may be made on this by a method generally as described in British Patent Specification No.

1,069,998 by depositing foamable resinous composition on it, printing a pattern of pigmented inks some which contain inhibitor that will alter the rate of foaming upon heating, applying a thin transparent wear resistant layer and then heating the product to cause foam and curing. Typically the resultant product contains per square metre 30 grams glass fibre, 600 grams vinyl resin (generally PVC), 20 grams pigment, 400 grams of filler (generally calcium carbonate) and 300 grams plasticiser.

Towards the end of manufacture the product is inspected and lengths that have blemishes in their decoration or other faults are cut out and rejected.

These are chopped or torn into pieces having an average dimension of from 3 to 20 mm and 1320 grams of this particulate mass together with 1200 grams of calcium carbonate filler of particle size 100 microns and 100 grams of vinyl resin may be mixed together and fed to a compounding extruder or internal mixer of the Banbury type where they are mixed at a temperature of 1 700C and are finally extruded or taken from a mill as a sheet at 1 600 C.

The sheet maybe passed through a multi roll calender to improve its surface smoothness and it may then have a gauge of 0.6 mm and a weight of 1100 g/m2. An overall layer of foamable vinyl plastisol may be deposited by a reverse roll coater to a thickness of 0.3 mm and then gelled in a hot air oven at 1 600C. A number of inks, one or more of which contain an inhibitor of the foam expansion process, may then be printed by gravure or screen printing and an overall layer of 0.16 mm PVC plastisol may then be applied as wear layer. The product is then passed through an oven at a temperature sufficient to cause foaming to give an embossed product, is then cooled and if desired may' be cut into tiles. The final product may have a gauge of about 1.64 mm and weigh about 1875 g/m2.

EXAMPLE 2 Example 1 may be repeated except that after leaving the calender the sheet is laminated to a stabilising scrim. This may be a non-woven glass/synthetic or natural fibre tissue or, for instance, a needled web of 40% polyester and 60% bi-component nylon fibres that has been formed and needled and heated to achieve fusion of the outer component of the bi-component fibres, the web weighing 400 grams per square metre and having a gauge of 2.5 mm.

The stabilising scrim may be adhered to one surface of the reconstituted sheet, or sandwiched between two layers of the reconstituted sheet, in which case the layers are preferably of different thicknesses. Alternatively, one sheet may be of reconstituted material and the other of virgin stock.

After lamination, the material is coated with a chemically foamable plastisol as described in Example 2, the coating being applied to the sheet face which does not carry the laminate scrim. A cushioned vinyl product is made as described above which is even more dimensionally stable and is especially suitable for use as a tile product.

Claims (12)

1. Floor or wall covering comprising a decorative opaque surface layer bonded to a substrate comprising a sheet which has been made by sheeting a mass that includes 30 to 75% by weight inorganic particulate filler comprising comminuted glass fibres and that has been made by a process comprising comminuting and softening rejected decorative cushioned vinyl wall or floor covering material that includes glass fibres.

2. Covering according to claim 1 in which the decorative opaque surface layer comprises an embossed foamed vinyl layer carrying a pigmented decoration.

3. A method of making a floor or wall covering comprising making decorative cushioned vinyl wail or floor covering containing glass fibres, inspecting this, rejecting inferior quality material, comminuting and softening the rejected material and incorporating sufficient additional inorganic particulate material that the resultant mass contains 30 to 75% by weight inorganic particulate material, forming the resultant mass into a sheet and bonding a decorative opaque surface layer to a substrate comprising the sheet.

4. A method according to claim 1 in which the amount of additional particulate material incorporated into the mass is 20 to 1 509/0 by weight of the mass excluding the added particulate material.

5. A method according to claim 4 in which the added particulate material is particulate inorganic filler having a particle size of 50 to 300 microns.

6. A method according to any of claims 3 to 5 in which the mass contains from 40 to 60% by weight inorganic particulate material.

7. A method according to any of claims 3 to 6 in which from 5 to 30%, by weight of the mass, of additional polymeric material is incorporated into the mass.

8. A method according to any of claims 3 to 7 in which the opaque surface layer comprises a layer of vinyl resin and pigmented decoration and a wear layer.

9. A method according to claim 8 in which the vinyl resin layer is a foamed resin layer.

10. A method according to claim 9 in which the opaque surface layer is bonded to the substrate by depositing on to the substrate a layer of foamable vinyl resin composition and foaming this composition.

1 A method according to claim 10 in which the foaming is so conducted so as to produce an embossed profile.

12. A method according to claim 10 in which, after foaming, the foamed layer is mechanically embossed.