Preparation and identification of green polymers towards the production of sustainable latex from β-myrcene and some methacrylate monomers

Abstract

Sustainable polymers have enough potential to overcome petroleum materials and not completely rely on them for the presence of renewable raw materials, as well as the possibility of developing polymerization methods for renewable raw materials to have these materials recyclability, biodegradability and being a non-toxic material. This has been the focus of recent years. Solvent-free emulsion copolymerization of β-myrcene, a naturally occurring monoterpene monomer, the co-monomers that were used with β-myrcene, tetrahydrofurfuryl methacrylate, iso-bornyl methacrylate, and tert-butyl methacrylate, and each methacrylate monomer was polymerized separately with β-myrcene monomer, β-myrcene –methacrylate monomer (MY/MA) copolymers of different compositions were synthesized under nitrogen atmosphere at 60 ºC, using copolymers composition 50/50 comonomer reactivity ratios, and has been added sodium dodecyl sulfate as emulsifier, and ammonium persulfate as initiator. 1H-NMR, 13CNMR and FTIR spectroscopy were used to confirm the chemical structure and composition. It was found that the copolymerization reaction of each copolymer is influenced with the form of the methacrylate(s) side chain. Furthermore, the thermal properties of copolymers were characterized by DSC and TGA, where the value Tg indicate that random composition copolymers, due to the difference in crystallization of each side chain.