Because of the continuously increasing price of petroleum resources and an increase in environmental awareness, researchers are actively trying to produce polymers based on biorenewable resources to replace the traditional petroleum-based plastics. This presentation will discuss: (1) a novel thermoset based on acrylated epoxidized soybean oil (AESO) and methacrylated eugenol (ME); (2) a biocomposites from tall oil-based polyamide (PA) with lignin-cellulose fiber (LCF) as fillers.

Project 1: A biorenewable thermoset was prepared by copolymerizing AESO/ME via free radical polymerization. Both of the starting materials, soybean oil and eugenol, are biorenewable. The thermal, mechanical, and rheological properties of this thermoset system were studied as a function of composition. After extensive material characterization, it is concluded that this high biorenewable content resin system possesses good mechanical properties, high thermal stability, and fast curing speed, making it a suitable matrix resin for the pultrusion process and other composite manufacturing processes.

Project 2: Tall oil-based PA was blended with LCF to produced biocomposites. SEM shows that a good filler distribution and a good interfacial adhesion between the fiber and the matrix were achieved. This study demonstrates that the lignin-cellulose fiber can be blended with tall oil-based polyamides via melt processing to produce biorenewable composites with lower cost, higher mechanical properties, and higher biorenewable content when compared to the neat PA polymer.