High strength, acid‐resistant composites from canola, sunflower, or linseed oils: Influence of triglyceride unsaturation on material properties

Abstract

Herein are reported composites made by crosslinking unsaturated units in canola, sunflower or linseed oil with sulfur to yield CanS, SunS and LinS, respectively. These plant oils were selected because the average number of crosslinkable unsaturated units per triglyceride vary from 1.3 for canola to 1.5 for sunflower and 1.8 for linseed oil. The remeltable composites show compressive strengths that increase with increasing unsaturation number from CanS (9.3 MPa) to SunS (17.9 MPa) to LinS (22.9 MPa). These values for SunS and LinS are competitive when compared to the value of 17 MPa required for residential building using traditional Portland cement. The plant oil composites are recyclable over many cycles and can retain up to 100% of strength after 24 h in oxidizing acid under conditions where Portland cement is dissolved in under 30 min. Infusion of the composites into premade cement blocks affords them with significantly improved acid resistance as well. This work thus provides a simple, nearly 100% atom economical route to convert plant oils and waste sulfur to composites having enhanced performance over commercial structural materials.

Insulating Composites Made from Sulfur, Canola Oil, and Wool**

“…It has recently been established that judicious selection of fillers and crosslinkers can improve the mechanical performance of sulfur polymers and related composites. [10][11][12][13][14][15] Reports of these sulfur polymers as strong adhesives are also promising leads for use of the materials in sustainable construction. [16,17] We considered that preparing composites from sulfur polymers and natural Figure 1.…”

Copolymerization of a Bisphenol a Derivative and Elemental Sulfur by the RASP Process

“…Although inverse vulcanization was reported only a few years ago, its potential for facile production of versatile materials was quickly recognized. In a very short time, olefins derived from petroleum [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16], plant and animal sources [11,[17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] bacteria [28] and algae [35] have all proven to be successful monomers for the production of HSMs by inverse vulcanization. These HSMs have garnered significant attention for their potential as IR transparent lenses for thermal imaging [36], electrode materials [37,38] absorbents [11,13,[39][40][41], fertilizers [18,22], and structural materials [29,[42][43][44][45][46].…”

Sequential crosslinking for mechanical property development in high sulfur content composites

“…[4][5][6] HSMs produced by these routes have been proposed for applications such as electrode materials, [7][8][9][10][11][12] lenses for thermal imaging, [13] fertilizers [14,15] absorbents for removing toxins from water, [16][17][18][19][20][21] or as structural materials [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] and thermal insulators. [30,31] The InV mechanism proceeds when olefins are crosslinked by their reaction with sulfur radicals produced by heating elemental sulfur to >159 C. RASP involves thermal reaction of aryl halides with elemental sulfur whereby S C aryl bonds are formed, a process requiring slightly higher temperatures of 220-250 C.…”