Synthesis of Palm Oil Based Polyol via Glycerolysis and Transamidation Reactions for Polyurethane Foam Production

Abstract

s. Renewable sources like vegetable oil have been used to prepare many polymeric resins due to the awareness on environmental issue and depletion on petrochemical sources. In polyurethane (PU) production, petroleum based polyol such as polypropylene glycol (PPG) has been replaced with plant based polyol from canola oil, soybean oil and palm oil. However, prior to be used, these vegetable oil needs to be modify chemically or physically in order to increase their functionality. In this study, palm oil (PO) has been modify via glyceroylsis and transamidation before reacted with diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) at 1:1 NCO:OH ratio in the presence of distilled water as blowing agent and silicone surfactant as foam stabilizer to produce palm oil based PU foam. FTIR study of polyol from both routes shows that main hydroxyl group (-OH) have been successfully introduced into palm oil molecular structure. It was also found that the hardness of two routes have nearly similar values which were shore D 33.6 and 35.4 respectively. Both foams have potential to be used in many non-load bearing applications such as insulator in building or electrical appliances.

Synthesis of bio-polyol from epoxidized palm oleic acid by homogeneous catalyst

“…These unfavorable reactions resulted in oxirane oxygen concentration that was lower than the predicted value. 15,16 When RCO is high, epoxidized palm oleic acid is likewise high, which is advantageous because it results in the production of more polyol. At 60 min, the data indicate that the RCO of butanol is higher because the epoxy content is still higher, resulting in a lesser synthesis of polyol when butanol is used as a ring opener.…”