Abstract
Poly(furfuryl alcohol) (PFA) is a bioresin synthesized from furfuryl alcohol (FA) that is derived from renewable saccharide-rich biomass. In this study, we compounded this bioresin with polycaprolactone (PCL) for the first time, introducing new functional polymer blends. Although PCL is biodegradable, its production relies on petroleum precursors such as cyclohexanone oils. With the method proposed herein, this dependence on petroleum-derived precursors/monomers is reduced by using PFA without significantly modifying some important properties of the PCL. Polymer blend films were produced by simple solvent casting. The blends were characterized in terms of surface topography by atomic force microscopy (AFM), chemical interactions between PCL and PFA by attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR), crystallinity by XRD, thermal properties by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and mechanical properties by tensile tests and biocompatibility by direct and indirect toxicity tests. PFA was found to improve the gas barrier properties of PCL without compromising its mechanical properties, and it demonstrated sustained antioxidant effect with excellent biocompatibility. Our results indicate that these new blends can be potentially used in diverse applications ranging from food packing to biomedical devices.
Highlights
Furfural has been identified as a very important and promising chemical precursor directly derived from biomass
Most of the furfural produced worldwide is converted by hydrogenation into furfuryl alcohol (FA) [3], which can be readily polymerized through cationic condensation to obtain polyfurfuryl alcohol (PFA)
Dulbecco’s modified eagle medium (DMEM), phosphate buffer saline (PBS), glucose, glutamine, fetal bovine serum inactivated, penicillin streptomycin and non-essential amino acids used for cell culture were produced by Gibco (Dublin, Ireland) and used as received
Summary
Furfural has been identified as a very important and promising chemical precursor directly derived from biomass. Pranger et al [17] employed an in situ polymerization approach to produce PFA nanocomposites with cellulose nanowhiskers and nanoclay Both bio-nanocomposites were characterized by significantly higher temperature at the onset of degradation and higher residual weight after non-oxidative degradation compared to unmodified PFA resins. To the best of our knowledge, blends of PCL with other thermosetting resinous materials generally focus on PCL-epoxy systems [26] in which PCL acts as a mechanical property modifier and helps electrospinning of epoxies for functional applications [27]. The combination of a biodegradable polymer with a biomass-derived resin is expected to generate new biomaterials with attractive novel properties. Due to PFA, the blends demonstrated good antioxidant properties as well as low oxygen permeability without significantly altering the appealing mechanical properties of PCL for many applications
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