Bio‐based flexible polyurethane foam synthesized from palm oil and natural rubber

Abstract

As environment friendly polymers are required to reduce the green‐house gas emissions and global warming, bio‐based polyurethane foam (PUF) is attracting interest from the industrial sector and researchers. Bio‐based polyols for PUF have been synthesized from various renewable resources, mostly plant oils. The present study explored a novel bio‐based PUF produced from a mixture of bio‐based polyols synthesized from palm oil and natural rubber. Palm oil‐based polyol (POP) was synthesized via an epoxidation reaction of double bonds of palm oil followed by complete oxirane ring‐opening. Hydroxy telechelic natural rubber (HTNR) was synthesized by oxidative degradation using periodic acid and sodium borohydride. For comparison, two diisocyanates were used: toluene‐2,4‐diisocyanate and polymeric methylene diphenyl diisocyanate. POP and HTNR were miscible and all PUFs showed polyhedral semi‐closed cells and hardness was in the flexible foam range. One possible application of the novel PUF could be thermal insulation.

Structure-properties relationships of cellular materials from biobased polyurethane foams

“…Otherwise, alkoxylated [282] or not [283] eugenol extracted from cloves was transformed through thiol-ene chemistry to produce polyols. In another study, the natural rubber was transformed through controlled oxidative degradation, followed by a reduction to obtain a OHterminated natural rubber [284].…”

Viscoelastic polyurethane foams from unmodified kraft lignin dispersed into methoxy polyethylene glycol and palm kernel oil as partial substitutes of petroleum-based polyols

“…However, there are no reports of the combination of MPEG and PKO as dispersing agent for KL. PKO is obtained from the kernel part of the oil palm fruit, which consists of lauric, oleic and myristic acids, and has also been used in the synthesis of bio-polyols to replace petroleum-based polyols [18,[22][23][24][25][26][27]. For example, Lat et al [18] reported the use of PKO to produce PUbased PKO with exible characteristics.…”

“…The behavior of VPF is a result of the underlying polymer structure and is controlled by the formulation that the foam designer uses. Despite of the evident relevance of VPF to the daily basis, there are few reports on VPF using bio-based raw materials as a strategy to reduce the environmental impact of this class of materials [18,[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. The present work combined the features from KL and PKO into VPFs as a sustainability strategy to replace part of MPEG, while adding economic feasibility.…”

Biobased flexible polyurethane foams manufactured from lactide‐based polyester‐ether polyols for automotive applications

“…Several other routes such as hydroformylation, ozonolysis, and transesterification were also used for polyol synthesis from soybean oil. 8,9 Apart from soybean oil, other triglycerides such as castor oil, 9 palm oil, 10,11 rapeseed oil, 12 sunflower oil, 13 and linseed oil 13 were also used for the synthesis of biobased polyols.…”