Rational design of sustainable polyurethanes from castor oil: towards simultaneous reinforcement and toughening

Abstract

Sustainable polyurethanes prepared from castor oil and diisocyanates show very low strength and toughness, due to the highly cross-linked and flexible structure. Herein, we report a new strategy to simultaneously reinforce and toughen castor oil-based polyurethane via incorporating a stiff component (isosorbide, IS) to enhance network stiffness and reduce crosslink density. The crosslinking degree decreases while the strength, moduli, ductility and heat resistance significantly increase accordingly with increasing IS content. The tensile behaviors are tunable over a broad range (either as elastomers or as plastics) depending on the compositions. The polyurethanes show excellent thermal stability with onset decomposition temperature higher than 280°C. The investigation provides a new hint for future design and fabrication of high performance sustainable polymers from other vegetable oils.

Incorporation ofCO2‐polyols into ester‐based waterborne polyurethane: An effective strategy to improve overall performance

“…The improved hydrolysis resistance of WPU modified by CO 2 ‐polyol was due to the combination of carbonate and ether groups in the backbone of CO 2 ‐polol 42–43 . The improved hydrolysis resistance of WPU modified by CO was due to the existence of hydrophobic long alkyl group in CO 44–46 …”

“…The improved hydrolysis resistance of WPU modified by CO 2 -polyol was due to the combination of carbonate and ether groups in the backbone of CO 2 -polol. [42][43] The improved hydrolysis resistance of WPU modified by CO was due to the existence of hydrophobic long alkyl group in CO. [44][45][46] The similar swelling and hydrolysis resistance properties of CO 2 -polyol or PPG modified WPU was resulted from the existence of ether group in these two materials that significantly prevented the permeation of water and consequently slowed the hydrolysis reaction of the ester group in WPU. Poor swelling behavior of CO-modified WPU might be caused by the existence of the long chain alkyl group that cannot obviously resist the swelling and hydrolysis reaction caused by degradation.…”

Self-healing materials enable free-standing seamless large-scale 3D printing

“…Thus, Cu-DOU-CPU 0.3 -T could be readily produced at a large scale for a wide range of applications. Furthermore, various self-healing materials including silicone, polyamide, polyetherimides, diolefine rubber, and polyurethane materials have been recently developed [39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49]. Applying the print-healing strategy to these materials would facilitate the 3D printing of diverse objects with various properties for a wide range of applications.…”

Malleable and Sustainable Poly(ester amide) Networks Synthesized via Melt Condensation Polymerization

“…Therefore, increasing efforts have been devoted to improve the properties of plant oils derived polymers, and some important progress has been achieved to improve the mechanical properties of plant oils-based polymer networks. − The low strength resulted from the soft segments and amorphous state. Meanwhile, the low ductility was caused by the highly cross-linked structure.…”

“…With this design principle, high strength and high ductile plant oils-based polymer networks have been fabricated successfully. For example, all plant oil derived high performance epoxy thermosets were synthesized by curing epoxidized soybean oil with a castor oil derived polyamide 1010 oligomeric curing agent; , high performance castor oil derived polyurethane networks were obtained by using isosorbide as a rigid and difunctional extender to increase the network stiffness and decrease the cross-link density . However, those high performance plant oils derived polymer networks cannot be reprocessed due to their permanent covalent network structures.…”