Abstract
Increasing non-biodegradable plastic consumption is a great factor that contributes to worldwide pollution and global warming. Mechanochemistry provides a clean, solvent-less, route for chemical reactions such as polymerization based on the absorption of mechanical energy. Urea polymers have several applications in industrial and medical area, such as paints, resins, plastic, wood glue, separating aliphatic hydrocarbons, coating, and pharmaceutical drugs. In this study, a copolymer of urea and citric acid was synthesized using a planetary ball mill as grinder with fixed reaction time and rotational speed, varying the number and material of the planetary ball mill sphere to find the effects of those two conditions in the yield percentage of the copolymer. The purified polymer was characterized by Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance – NMR. Results confirmed that polymeric material is formed by the reaction between citric acid and urea without any catalyzer using mechanochemistry. NMR results showed that the reaction occurred between urea and the acid groups at the ends of the chain, while the central COOH remained intact.
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