Commercial polymer adhesives from petroleum-derived monomers show outstanding performance by providing tackiness and high adhesive strength, most of them are abundant and usually non-expensive. Nonetheless, their price is constantly increasing due to fossil feedstock depletion, as well as their harm caused to the environment and human health can be substantial. Those concerns push chemists toward the search for greener polymer adhesives alternatives, including highly biobased polymers.<br/>In this study, latex adhesive candidates were synthesized using two monomers derived from natural resources - isobornyl methacrylate (IBOMA) and plant oil-based acrylic monomers (POBMs). POBMs are structurally esters of N-hydroxyethyl acrylamide and plant oil fatty acids yielding homopolymers with Tg in a range of -80 to -90°C. Particularly, monomers differing by unsaturation degree of fatty acids fragments, high-oleic soybean oil-based monomer (HOSBM), and camelina oil-based monomer (CMM) were used to serve as soft adhesive fragments. IBOMA homopolymers show high Tg (in a range of 170-180°C), this fragment is expected to serve as a rigid counterpart in adhesives we synthesize.<br/>Since the aqueous solubility of both POBMs and IBOMA is very low mini-emulsion polymerization process was applied as a technique known to be used for latex synthesis from highly hydrophobic monomers. The ratio between HOSBM/CMM and IBOMA was varied, with overall biobased content of 80 wt.%. 20 wt% of butyl acrylate (BA) was used to increase the tackiness. Total monomer conversion, latex particle size, latex polymers molecular weight, PDI, and Tg were determined for the synthesized latex polymers. Adhesive performance of selected latexes was assessed on paperboard substrate using 180° T-peel test. Furthermore, contact angles measurements and contact angle hysteresis were determined to access correlation between the substrate wettability by latexes and adhesives performance.<br/>In summary, highly biobased adhesives from POBMs and IBOMA show promise as alternatives to be applied in food packaging and products in close contact with humans.

Highly biobased latex adhesives from plant-oil derived monomers and isobornyl methacrylate

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ACS Fall 2022

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