The last several decades has witnessed notable research in natural and biodegradable polymers for applications that interact with humans or the environment. This research describes the synthesis and characterization of temperature sensitive hemicellulos based gels. Herein, hemicellulose was first converted into a thermoplastic material via ring-opening graft polymerization of caprolactone to enhance the material processability. The grafting of PCL sidechains onto the hemicellulose was confirmed by <sup>1</sup>H-NMR. PCL grafted materials were able to form continuous films, unlike unmodified hemicellulose that forms aggregates upon manual pressing at 100°C. Hemicellulose-grafted-poly(caprolactone) [HC-g-PCL] materials were functionalized with different amounts of furan rings and allowed to react with bismaleimide by means of Diels-Alder chemistry. The conjugate furan/bismaleimide were used herein as diene/dienophile system due to their good reactivity. The temperature dependent reversibility of the designed gels was evaluated by solubility and rheological assessments. The results indicated that the temperature at which the networks disassemble varies based on the amount of the furan moieties in the initial copolymer and can range between 108.6-127.6°C. The designed networks display promising molecular and synthetic features for the production of high-performance temperature-responsive polymers from renewable resources.

Thermally reversible hemicellulose-based networks: Synthesis and characterization

2019 Spring National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.