Rigid polyurethane foams from commercial castor oil resins

Abstract

Rigid polyurethane foams (RPUFs) are among the most used polymeric materials due to their tailorable properties. Greener and biobased polyol sources for synthesising RPUFs have been recently prototyped because of the ever-growing demand for more sustainable materials solutions. Castor Oil has also rapidly become one of the most successful alternatives to replace polyurethane fossil-based components. This study extensively investigates three types of RPUFs developed from commercially available Castor Oil-based resins, correlating their properties across different length scales. In particular, X-ray diffraction identified a characteristic peak whose intensity correlated with the apparent foam density, morphology (obtained from computed tomography scans) and mechanical properties. Furthermore, quasi-static compression and vibration transmissibility tests revealed distinctive anisotropic mechanical responses among the foams, with one type of RPUF consistently outperforming the others due to its lower porosity, reaching 13.3 MPa of compressive modulus. These findings demonstrate the possibility of tuning the mechanical properties of foams via compositional control.