Biomass Molecular Engineering Center, Anhui Provincial Engineering Center for High Performance Biobased Nylons, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui 230036, China.
Biomass Molecular Engineering Center, Anhui Provincial Engineering Center for High Performance Biobased Nylons, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui 230036, China.
Carbohydr Polym. 2023 Apr 1;305:120577. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2023.120577. Epub 2023 Jan 11.
With the dramatically increased environmental problems, the rational design of sustainable polymers from renewable feedstocks opens new avenues to reduce the huge pollution impact. The major challenge for sustainable polymers is the decreased mechanical performance compared to that of petroleum-based materials. In this work, fully biobased sustainable elastomers were developed by integrating renewable chitin, lignin, and plant oil into one macromolecule, in which chitin was chosen as the rigid backbone, while a lignin-derived monomer vanillin acrylate (VA) and a plant oil-based monomer lauryl acrylate (LA) were selected as the hard and soft segments for the grafted side chains. A series of Chitin-graft-poly(vanillin acrylate-co-lauryl acrylate) (Chitin-g-P(VA-co-LA)) copolymers with varied feed ratios and chitin contents were synthesized by using reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization as an effective grafting strategy. In addition, a dynamic cross-linked network was incorporated via Schiff-base reaction to improve the macroscopic behavior of such kind of chitin graft elastomers. These sustainable elastomers are mechanically strong and show excellent reprocessablity, as well as outstanding UV-blocking property. This strategy is versatile and can inspire the further development of fully biobased sustainable materials from natural resources.
随着环境问题的急剧增加，从可再生原料中合理设计可持续聚合物为减少巨大的污染影响开辟了新途径。可持续聚合物的主要挑战是与石油基材料相比，其机械性能下降。在这项工作中，通过将可再生甲壳素、木质素和植物油整合到一个大分子中，开发出了完全基于生物的可持续弹性体，其中甲壳素被选为刚性主链，而木质素衍生单体香草醛丙烯酸酯（VA）和植物油基单体月桂醇丙烯酸酯（LA）被选为接枝侧链的硬段和软段。通过可逆加成-断裂链转移（RAFT）聚合作为一种有效的接枝策略，合成了一系列具有不同进料比和甲壳素含量的 Chitin-graft-poly(vanillin acrylate-co-lauryl acrylate)（Chitin-g-P(VA-co-LA)）共聚物。此外，通过席夫碱反应引入了动态交联网络，以改善这种甲壳素接枝弹性体的宏观行为。这些可持续弹性体具有机械强度高、可再加工性好、紫外线阻隔性能优异等特点。这种策略具有通用性，可以激发从自然资源中进一步开发完全基于生物的可持续材料。
