Chemoenzymatic route to renewable thermosets based on a suberin monomerShow others and affiliations
2013 (English)In: Journal of Renewable Materials, ISSN 2164-6325, Vol. 1, no 2, p. 124-140Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The present study describes the use of an epoxy functional fatty acid, 9,10-epoxy-18-hydroxyoctadecanoic acid (EFA), extracted from birch (Betula pendula) outer bark to produce thermosets. The purified epoxy fatty acid was polymerized by enzyme-catalyzed polycondensation utilizing Candida antarctica lipase B (CalB) to form oligomers with targeted degrees of polymerization (DP) of 3, 6, and 9 and obtained DPs of 2.3, 5.9 and 7.3, respectively. It was determined that it is possible to first enzymatically polymerize and aliphatically endcap the epoxy functional fatty acid resulting in controlled oligomer lengths while also maintaining the epoxy functionality for further reaction by main-chain homo-epoxy cationic photopolymerization. The enzymatic polymerized oligomers were characterized in terms of conversion of the residual epoxy groups (FT-IR), the thermal properties (DSC, TGA) and the purity by MALDI-TOF and 1H-NMR. The amorphous thermoset films with varying degrees of crosslinking resulting from the cationically photopolymerized oligomers, were characterized in terms of their thermal properties and residual epoxy content (FT-IR ATR). The crosslinked polyesters formed insoluble, amorphous, and transparent films. This work demonstrates that thermoset films with designed properties can be effectively made with the use of forest products to reduce the petroleumbased plastics market.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2013. Vol. 1, no 2, p. 124-140
Keywords [en]
Cationic photopolymerization, Enzyme-catalyzed polymerization, Natural epoxidized oils, Suberin
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-6435DOI: 10.7569/JRM.2012.634109Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84947215937Local ID: 13969OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-6435DiVA, id: diva2:964273
2016-09-082016-09-082024-05-22Bibliographically approved