Poly(urea-urethane) nanoparticles using mono- and diacylglycerol from glycerolysis of castor oil as biopolyol and stabilizer

Abstract

Vegetable oils as renewable raw materials for polymer synthesis are considered a clean and environment-friendly alternative to substitute partially, and to some extent totally, petroleum-based monomers. In this work, enzymatic glycerolysis of castor oil with Novozym 435 (C. antarctica lipase B) as catalyst was performed in a solvent-free system at 70 °C. The glycerolysis product was used as biopolyol and stabilizer for the synthesis of poly(urea-urethane) (PUU) nanoparticles via miniemulsion polymerization. Results showed that the PUU particles size increased with solids content and z-average particle diameters ranging from 167 to 282 nm when the solids content was increased from 20 to 40 wt%. All lattices were stable towards sedimentation, although the latex with lower particle size exhibited a higher stability. Thereby, this work showed a green route to produce stable PUU lattices from renewable resources without the use of any additional surfactant.