Hydrophobization of arabinoxylan with n-butyl glycidyl ether yields stretchable thermoplastic materials

Parveen Kumar Deralia,Aline Maire Du Poset,Anja Lund,Anette Larsson,Anna Ström,Gunnar Westman

doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2021.08.041

Parveen Kumar Deralia, Aline Maire Du Poset + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2021.08.041

Copy DOI

Abstract

Hemicelluloses are regarded as one of the first candidates for the development of value-added materials due to their renewability, abundance, and functionality. However, because most hemicelluloses are brittle, they can only be processed as a solution and cannot be processed using industrial melt-based polymer processing techniques. In this study, arabinoxylan (AX) was hydrophobized by incorporating butyl glycidyl ether (BuGE) into the hydroxyl groups through the opening of the BuGE epoxide ring, yielding alkoxy alcohols with terminal ethers. The formed BuGE derivatives were melt processable and can be manufactured into stretchable thermoplastic films through compression molding, which has never been done before with hemicellulose modified in a single step. The structural and thermomechanical properties of the one-step synthesis approach were compared to those of a two-step synthesis with a pre-activation step to demonstrate its robustness. The strain at break for the one-step synthesized AX thermoplastic with 3 mol of BuGE is ≈200%. These findings suggest that thermoplastic polymers can be composited with hemicelluloses or that thermoplastic polymers made entirely of hemicelluloses can be designed as packaging and stretchable electronics supports.

Highlights

Products derived from renewable and plant-based resources, as opposed to fossil resources, support and contribute to a more sustainable and bio-based economy
We previously demonstrated that arabinoxylans etherified with n-butyl glycidyl ether (BuGE) using water as a solvent can be molded by melt compression to produce stretchable thermo plastic films after successive periodate oxidation and reduction [31,41]
A series of thermoplastic mate rials was synthesized in neat AX using 1, 3, and 5 mol of BuGE to obtain thermoplastic materials in a single step (Entries 1, 2, and 3 in Table 1; Fig. 1b-ii part 2)

Summary

Introduction

Products derived from renewable and plant-based resources, as opposed to fossil resources, support and contribute to a more sustainable and bio-based economy. We previously demonstrated that arabinoxylans etherified with n-butyl glycidyl ether (BuGE) using water as a solvent can be molded by melt compression to produce stretchable thermo plastic films after successive periodate oxidation and reduction (acti vation) [31,41]. We present a one-step hydrophobization of arabinox ylan with n-butyl glycidyl ether to produce thermoplastic materials and evaluate their melt processability and thermomechanical properties using a melt compression molding process. AX was acti vated (in a range of low to high ring opening oxidation and subsequent reduction; Table 1) before incorporating n-butyl glycidyl ether The purpose of this two-step synthesis was to investigate how the hydroxyl groups in native AX and activated AX influence the melt processability and thermomechanical properties in the case of one-step and two-step synthesized materials. To determine the robustness of the one-step synthesis, we compared the structures and thermomechanical proper ties of the one-step and two-step synthesized materials

Reagents and materials

Synthesis

Characterization

Results and discussion

Conclusions