A group of sustainable materials are proposed and produced from multifunctional epoxides and oxetanes obtained from renewable sources. Monomers are polymerized using diaryliodonium salts as photoinitiators to be carried out under UV irradiation. DMA, DSC and confocal Raman spectroscopy were applied to investigate the network formation and glass transition temperatures of epoxidized linseed oil and its mixture with 4-vinyl cyclohexene diepoxide (VCHD) in detail. Results revealed the dependency of crosslinking to the thickness and viscosity of monomer. Using our optical pyrometry apparatus, copolymerization studies of difunctional oxetanes showed that limonene dioxide (LDO), a sustainable terpene-based epoxy monomer, was effective in increasing the reaction rates, also known as “kick-start” effect. With 10 wt% of LDO, the induction period of bis[1-Ethyl(3-oxetanyl)]methyl ether (DOX) is shortened from 2.5 min to 6s while Tg was enhanced from 64 <b>°</b>C to 113 <b>°</b>C, showing its potential to be applied in adhesive and surface coatings.

Network structure and properties of sustainable epoxy and oxetane thermosets polymerized by cationic photoinitiator

251st National Meeting (2016)

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