High bio-content natural plant oil based UV-curable branched oligomers
A new, green approach to improve the performance and biorenewable content of natural plant oil based UV-curable materials is presented by researchers from North Dakota State University.
They synthesised a novel kind of soy-based UV-curable branched oligomers (ACSO) by chemically introducing cashew nutshell liquid (CNL) onto the epoxidised soybean oil (ESBO) backbone, followed by epoxidisation and acrylation.
ACSO based coatings exhibit higher impact resistance
The ACSO were used to produce UV-curable films and coatings. The UV-curing behaviour of ACSO was investigated using real-time IR. The properties of UV cured films were studied using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), tensile testing, and nanoindentation technique. Compared to coating from acrylated epoxidised soybean oil, ACSO based coating exhibited higher impact resistance, better crosshatch adhesion, and enhanced thermal and mechanical properties.
Improved properties are due to aromatic ring from CNL
Meanwhile, high bio-renewable content was maintained due to the bio-renewable character of CNL in ACSO. The improved coating properties can be attributed to the incorporated aromatic ring from CNL and multi-branched structure of ACSO. This approach provided a new direction to the future development of advanced bio-based UV-curable oligomers with reasonably high bio-renewable content.
The study is published in: Progress in Organic Coatings, Volume 105, April 2017, Pages 143–148
