Natural and synthetic materials subjected to Earth’s atmosphere can degrade over time in a process known as “weathering". This complex process involves a series of chemical reactions influenced by the effects of heat, light, ionizing radiation, and moisture. Another significant factor is the presence of environmental oxygen, which causes oxidative degradation of the material surface. This is especially problematic for polymer derived materials, which often exhibit decreased material lifetime due to oxidation-caused embrittlement, cracking, and fracture. To delay the onset of oxidative degradation, small molecule additives known as antioxidants are often formulated into the polymer. Historically, phenolic chemistries have been used due to their excellent reactivity towards the oxygen species that lead to oxidation. However, phenolics are toxic, corrosive, and suffer from a phenomenon known as leaching, in which they migrate from the polymer material over time. Thus, they may contaminate the surrounding environment over the lifetime of the material. In this talk, we describe our investigation into new families of antioxidants based on organoborons, formulated into a standard epoxy-amine thermoset material. Boron-based materials have known antioxidant properties in vivo, due to the empty p orbital of boron. Interestingly, few studies have focused on studying the antioxidant properties of organoborons in synthetic materials. In this work, we demonstrated the aging and antioxidant performance of four organoborons doped into epoxy thermosets. We also describe the leaching tendency under dynamic extraction conditions, as well as the thermo-oxidative properties of each system.

Organoboron based antioxidants

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