Mechanical properties, chemical and thermo-oxidative resistance of biopolymer matrices based on the epoxy resin and functionalized soybean oil

Abstract

Biopolymer matrices has been synthesized on the basis of ED-20 epoxy resin and soybean oil (SbO) bearing cyclocarbonate and epoxy groups. Mono(cyanoethyl)diethylenetriamine (UP) and tris(2-hydroxyethyl)amine (TEA) were used as hardeners. Chemical structure, mechanical properties, thermo-oxidative resistance of the samples and their changes after contact with distilled water, alkaline or acidic environment were studied. By means of ATR-FTIR the possible formation of H-NIPU (hybrid non-isocyanate polyurethane) fragments between cyclocarbonate groups of SbO and amino groups of the hardener was demonstrated. Influence of the curing mode and the type of hardener on water absorption, chemical and thermal oxidation resistance of the developed biopolymer matrices was thoroughly investigated. UP-based biopolymer matrices showed water and alkali resistance similar to the ones of neat epoxy polymers, while TEA-based biopolymer matrices showed better resistance to the acidic medium. The thermo-oxidative stability of the chosen samples was revealed by the TGA method in an air atmosphere. It was demonstrated that epoxy polymer cured with TEA hardener were more stable than the one cured with UP hardener. The similar dependence is observed for biopolymer matrices based on TEA hardener. At the same time, the curing mode has almost no effect on ultimate tensile strength value of the samples with ED-20/UP composition. However, the addition of functionalized SbO to the epoxy matrix cured with both TEA and UP hardeners increases the ultimate tensile strength values regardless of the type of oil functionalization. As expected, all biopolymer matrices exhibited higher ultimate tensile strength compared with unmodified epoxy polymers, which provides the possibility of their further application to obtain multi-layered bioplastics.