Bio‐based nanocomposites composed of photo‐cured epoxidized soybean oil and supramolecular hydroxystearic acid nanofibers

Abstract

A mixture of epoxidized soybean oil (ESO), (R)‐12‐hydroxystrearic acid (HSA) and a photoinitiator for cationic polymerization in the ESO/HSA weight ratio 10/1 was heated to 100 °C and gradually cooled to room temperature to give bio‐based gelatinous material. The photo‐curing of the gel afforded a nanocomposite composed of crosslinked ESO and supramolecular HSA nanofibers. The transmission electron microscopy observation of the photo‐cured ESO/HSA revealed that dendritic clusters of HSA nanofibers are formed in the crosslinked ESO matrix. In the differential scanning calorimetry chart of the ESO/HSA, a thermal transition from the mesophase composed of supramolecular nanofibers to isotropic state was observed at 67 °C (ΔH = 22.6 J/g‐HSA), while the Tm of crystalline HSA is 77.7 °C (ΔHm = 159 J/g‐HSA). Tensile strength at 20 °C of the ESO‐HSA was ∼80% higher than that of photo‐cured ESO without HSA. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 47: 669–673, 2009

Green Nanocomposites from Renewable Plant Oils and Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxanes

“…Furthermore, various cationic polymerization of epoxidized plant oils can be achieved by photoinitiators, latent catalysts, or acid catalysts. These epoxy compounds from renewable resources possess high potential as a starting material for bio-based thermosetting plastics [35][36][37][38]. The composites of plant oil-based network polymers from epoxidized plant oils and inorganic substances were developed [39][40][41].…”

Photopolymerization Reactions: On the Way to a Green and Sustainable Chemistry

“…Renewable monomers/oligomers have been proposed and studied; e.g., (i) acrylates: acrylated vegetable oils [118], natural or naturally derived products (photocrosslinkable polylactides [119], ε-caprolactone [120,121], poly (lactide-co-ethylene oxide-co-fumarate) [122], poly(caprolactone-colactic acid) [123], methacrylate based gelatine derivatives [124], acrylate modified starch [125] and itaconic acid based photocurable polyesters [126]; (ii) epoxides: epoxidized sunflower [127,128], epoxidized soybean oil (ESO), linseed oil, vernonia oil or castor oil (see in [129]), limonene dioxide (LDO) [130] (limonene is a liquid terpene found in various volatile oils, such as cardamom, nutmeg and turpentine; LDO can be formed through oxidation of limonene by peracids), epoxidized natural rubbers [131], vegetable oils [132] and epoxidized fatty acid (EFA); or (iii) resins based on vegetable oil [133,134], soybean [135], rosin ester [136], tung [137] and palm stearin [138,139] and castor oil. The photopolymerization of such monomers is more or less efficient as a function of the chemical structure, the multifunctional character or the irradiation conditions.…”

Bio-Based Nanocomposites Composed of Photo-Cured Soybean-Based Resins and Supramolecular Hydroxystearic Acid Nanofibers

“…are expected for the biobased nanocomposites as compared with conventional network polymer/fiber composites. The present study describes the preparation and properties of the bio-nanocomposites composed of the ESO (Shibata et al, 2009) and AESO crosslinked by the photopolymerization and self-assembled HSA molecules.…”