International. Scientists at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology have synthesized biologically flexible, hard and resistant polyurethane thermoset materials from renewable materials, i.e. glycerol and 10-undecenoic acid.
The main theme of a new paper is to develop bio-based low-viscosity polyols from renewable resources. An epoxide compound (UA-GLY-E) was synthesized by esterification of glycerol and 10-undecenoic acid preceded by peroxidation. For the first time, UA-GLY-E was used as a building block in the generation of polyols and low-viscosity polyurethanes from them. The biobased polyols were synthesized by opening the epoxide ring of UA-GLY-E with different nucleophiles, namely glycerol, water and methanol.
The advantage of these bio-based polyols is their low viscosity and, at the same time, their high functionality. These biobased polyols were further converted into poly (urethane-urea) coatings by reaction with methylene diphenyl-diisocyanate. The impact of peripheral structural change in polyols on the properties of polyols and their polyurethane coatings was studied. Flexible, hard and resistant thermoset materials have been successfully prepared from the same epoxy compound, altering the remaining peripheral in the polyol structure.
Bio-based polyurethanes prepared from glycerol and water-based polyols have shown better cross-linking density over methanol-based polyol. In addition, these bio-based polyurethane films have shown good thermal stability, mechanical strength and chemical resistance as well.
Source: Journal of Coatings Technology and Research.
