Bio‐Based Polymers Obtained from Modified Fatty Acids and Soybean Oil with Tailorable Physical and Mechanical Performance

Abstract

The impending world oil shortage, global climate changes, and environmental pollution encourage the use of natural renewable resources to produce substitutes for petroleum-derived polymers. In this work, two series of bio-based thermoset polymers are prepared by free radical polymerization of commercially available acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO) with different amounts of methacrylated oleic (MOA) or lauric (MLA) acids. The characterization of the resulting cured bio-based copolymers is performed by infrared spectroscopy, dynamic mechanical analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, and tensile tests. Experimental results show that heat resistance index, storage modulus, and crosslinking density increase as the content of AESO in the samples increases, whereas the corresponding glass transition temperatures (T g) decrease slightly. Samples containing MLA present higher tensile modulus and strength than polymers made from MOA or 100% AESO. All materials are insoluble in water and common organic solvents, show high transparency and water contact angles among 67°and 86.3°, and at least some of the samples demonstrate stress relaxation capacity. Practical Applications: The properties of the bio-based polymers obtained in this work can be adapted to different potential applications by selecting both the amount and type of constituents. Their tailorable physical and mechanical performance, malleability at elevated temperatures, moderate wettable surfaces, easy preparation, high content of bio-carbon, and environmental benefits make these novel bio-based polymers great candidates not only for structural applications but also as protective or decorative coatings.

Integrating ricinoleic acid derivates to thermoset polymers with tunable properties

“…The same trend was observed in the work of Capiel et al 12 . and Hernández et al 20 . because the increase of STR in the copolymer modifies (increases) the amount of micro‐/nano‐gels formed during the first stages of curing and consequently also increases the amount of dispersion/reflecting zones with higher opacity values.…”

“…In this way, the ratio of the plant oil to reactive diluent can be conveniently adjusted to control the physical, mechanical and biodegradable properties of the polymerized plant derivatives 19 . Furthermore, this chemical modification route could give rise to polymer precursors and later to polymers, with β‐hydroxyester groups that can lead to associative exchange reactions when they are submitted to thermal treatments 20,21 . These new materials, called vitrimers, are being considered for their potential technological applications because they can exhibit outstanding properties like self‐healing and surface welding, network malleability and shape memory, amongst others 22,23 …”

Development of renewable thermosetting polymers based on grape seed oil derivatives

“…The shape of water droplet on the sample surface is showed in Figure S7b, and the PG55‐1Im‐1 presented contact angle equal to 74.7 ± 0.5°, which did not differ significantly to other coating materials described in literature. For instance, Noè and collaborators achieved 74.9 ± 2.0° by photopolymerization (Type I) of EGSO and described it as an anticorrosion coating while polymers derived from ESO and methacrylated oleic or lauric acids in different proportions provided values between 70 and 86° 53,54 . In addition, Pawlak and coauthors reported contact angles between 66.4 and 80.8° for polymers obtained from maleinized vegetable oil and poly(lactic acid) 55 .…”

A review of fatty epoxide ring opening reactions: Chemistry, recent advances, and applications

“…Polymer properties can also be controlled by changing the nature of the comonomer or the acrylated triglyceride, such as the use of acrylated epoxidized camelina oil instead of AESO to obtain a higher degree of functionality (Li & Sun, 2015). Renewable alternatives to styrene and divinyl benzene include methacrylated vanillyl alcohol (Chen, Liu, et al, 2020), methacrylated oleic and lauric acids (Hernandez et al, 2020), ethyl cellulose (Liu et al, 2021), and maleic anhydride (Lu et al, 2005), among others. AESO has also been combined with natural fibers and other fillers to produce composites with enhanced mechanical strength for automotive and construction applications (Liu & Tisserat, 2018; O'Donnell et al, 2004).…”