Abstract
Developing vegetable oil-derived primary plasticizers for poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is still a challenge because of their insufficient compatibility. As described in this work, we report the synthesis of plasticizers through the esterification of polyethylene glycol methyl ether and dimer acid, in which dimer acid is renewable material prepared via a two-step reaction (1) the hydrolysis of fatty acids from soybean oil at 70 °C and (2) subsequent Diels–Alder reaction at 250 °C. The resulting plasticizers, dimer acid-derived polyethylene glycol methyl ether esters (DA-2n, 2n = 2, 4, 6 or 8 referring to the number of oxethyl units per molecule), were blended with PVC. It was found that the tensile properties, transparency, and thermal stability of plasticized PVC (PVC-DA-2n) increased significantly with an increase in the number of oxyethyl units. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy analysis revealed that its good compatibility can be attributed to the strong interaction between oxyethyl units and PVC. As the number of the oxyethyl units of plasticizer increased, the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the corresponding plasticized PVC samples decreased from 62.3 (PVC-DA-2) to 35.4 °C (PVC-DA-8). Owing to the excellent plasticization of DA-8, the performances of PVC-DA-8 were comparable or better than that of the PVC plasticized using commercial dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP). The simple but efficient method of this study provides a new avenue for the preparation of vegetable oil-based plasticizers for PVC.
Highlights
Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) has been widely used in various products due to its excellent durability, high versatility, and contamination resistance [1]
The results indicate that 76.5 wt % dimer acid (DA)-8 was converted into volatility and migration results suggests that the plasticizer DA‐8 may outperform dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP) for a micromolecule such as octadecane and stearic acid
Feasible, and efficient method for preparing vegetable oil-based primary
Summary
Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) has been widely used in various products due to its excellent durability, high versatility, and contamination resistance [1]. Phthalates including dioctyl phthalate (DOP) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP) comprise more than 80% of all PVC plasticizers because of its balanced performance and moderate price [3]. These low molecular weight phthalates are toxic and are susceptible to migrating to the surface of the products, which leads to the potential harmful effects to humans and the environment [4,5]. Dioctyl terephthalate (DOTP) which has a lower toxicity, has been considered as a potential replacement for phthalate Still, it is non-renewable and difficult to degrade biologically. It becomes very urgent to develop green PVC plasticizers that are bio-based, of low toxicity, and biodegradable
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