Bio‐Based Polymers Obtained from Modified Fatty Acids and Soybean Oil with Tailorable Physical and Mechanical Performance

HERNÁNDEZ, EMANUEL; MOSIEWICKI, MIRNA. A.; MARCOVICH, NORMA. E.

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF LIPID SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH

Año: 2020

1438-7697

The impending world oil shortage, global climate changes and environmental pollution encourages the use of natural renewable resources to produce substitutes for petroleum- derived polymers. In this work, two series of bio‐based thermoset polymers were prepared by free radical polymerization of commercially available acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO) with different amounts of methacrylated oleic (MOA) or lauric (MLA) acids. The characterization of the resulting cured bio-based copolymers was performed by infrared spectroscopy, dynamic mechanical analysis, thermo-gravimetric analysis and tensile tests. Experimental results show that heat resistance index, storage modulus and cross-linking density increase as the content of AESO in the samples increases, whereas the corresponding glass transition temperatures (Tg) decreased slightly. Samples containing MLA present higher tensile modulus and strength than polymers made from MOA or 100% AESO. All materials resulted insoluble in water and common organic solvents, showed high transparency and water contact angles among 67 and 86.3° and at least some of the samples demonstrate stress relaxation capacity.Practical applications: the properties of the bio-based polymers obtained in this work can be adapted to different potential applications by selecting both the amount and type of constituents. Their tailorable physical and mechanical performance, malleability at elevated temperatures, moderate wettable surfaces, easy preparation, high content of bio-carbon and environmental benefits make these novel bio-based polymers great candidates not only for structural applications but also as protective or decorative coatings.