Soybean‐oil‐based thermosetting resins with methacrylated vanillyl alcohol as bio‐based, low‐viscosity comonomer

摘要

A novel, bio-based, aromatic monomer (methacrylated vanillyl alcohol,MVA), was synthesized using vanillyl alcohol and methacrylic anhydridein the absence of solvents. The resulting MVA was characterized and usedas a sustainable reactive diluent to replace styrene in a maleinated acrylatedepoxidized soybean oil (MAESO) resin to produce novel thermosettingresins via free radical polymerization. The influence of MVA loading (10 -40%) on the viscosity, gelation time, curing extent, thermo-mechanicalproperties, and tensile properties of the MAESO-MVA copolymer wasinvestigated. The synthesized MVA exhibited very low volatility relativeto styrene, which is beneficial for the development of construction materialwith low or zero emission. With 40 wt% of MVA content in MAESO, asignificant reduction of system viscosity (over an order of magnitude) wasachieved. Increasing the MVA content accelerated the crosslinking reactionrate and improved thermal and mechanical properties of the MAESO-MVAsystem. The glass transition temperature increased with increasing MVAcontent. Soxhlet extraction experiments showed that more than 90% of thecomponents were incorporated into the crosslinking network. The effect ofMVA purity on the properties of the resulting copolymer was alsoinvestigated. MAESO-MVA copolymers prepared using high-purity MVAexhibited higher degree of crosslinking.