Development of High-Performance Biodegradable Rigid Polyurethane Foams Using Full Modified Soy-Based Polyols

Abstract

Fossil fuel resources depletion and growing concern about environmental issues have raised the demand for newly sustainable biomaterials. To address this challenge, a new type of biodegradable and environmental rigid polyurethane foam called rigid polyurethane foams (RPUF)-M from full modified soy-based polyols have been synthesized without the addition of petroleum-based polyols. On the basis of the analysis of structure–activity relationship, a new kind of biobased polyurethane polyols called Bio-polyol-M was designed and synthesized directly from epoxidized soybean oil and a novel polyhydroxy compound in a three-step continuous microflow system. In the continuous microflow system, the epoxidation of soybean oil, the synthesis of GLPO (glycerine with styrene oxide), and the ring-opening reaction of epoxidized soybean oil were coupled. Another soy-polyol called Bio-polyol-B was synthesized in batch mode. In comparison to those of Bio-polyol-B, Bio-polyol-M had a higher hydroxyl number and a much lower viscosity. The RPUF-M also possessed a series of advantages over the rigid polyurethane foam called RPUF-B from Bio-polyol-B.

High performance biobased pour-in-place rigid polyurethane foams from facile prepared castor oil-based polyol: Good compatibility with pentane series blowing agent

“…It is notable that the thermal conductivity of PU-1 is lower than that of prepared RPUFs (20.2–20.5 (mW/mK) @ 10°C) using modified plant oils-based polyols. 5,26

Figure 8.Thermal conductivity of PU-1and PU-2 at different temperatures.

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“…The industrial aromatic polyester polyols which have high hydroxyl number are not compatible with a high percentage of cyclopentane. 26,29…”

“…Fang and co-workers synthesized polyol from epoxidized soybean oil and a novel polyhydroxy compound and used 100% in RPUFs formulation. 26 Wei and co-worker, have prepared polyol based on epoxidized soybean oil containing aromatic groups and used 100% in RPUFs formulation. 5 In the polyurethane rigid foams markets, pentane isomers are the most popular of hydrocarbons.…”

“…The industrial aromatic polyester polyols which have high hydroxyl number are not compatible with a high percentage of cyclopentane. 26,29 Although the outstanding companies in the polyurethane industry such as Bayer and Dow chemical start to produce new products based on plant oil for RPUFs, the performance evaluation of RPUFs revealed that synthesized biobased polyols could work in appliance only when they were mixed with polyether polyols. Due to the triglycerides structure of plant oils, toughness of RPUFs can increase and their hardness can decrease.…”

High Functionality Bio-Polyols from Tall Oil and Rigid Polyurethane Foams Formulated Solely Using Bio-Polyols

“…In recent years, a variety of methods to obtain polyols from plant oils have been studied, including: epoxidation and oxirane ring-opening [2,4,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]; hydroformylation and hydrogenation [2,4,16,36,37,39]; ozonolysis [2,4,16,36,37]; air oxidation [16,40]; dihydroxylation [16]; thiol-ene coupling [4,19,37,[41][42][43]; transesterification and transamidation [4,20,[26][27][28]37,38,44,45], and photochemical epoxidation (Schenck-ene reaction) [46][47][48]. However, nearly all of the published papers about polyol synthesis from plant oils are focused just on low or medium functionality/hydroxyl value polyol synthesis.…”