Novel High Molecular Weight Polymer and Radiation-Curable Coatings Derived from Soybean Oil

摘要

A process was developed to obtain vinylether-functional monomers containing fatty acid pendent groups directly from soybean oil (SBO) using base-catalyzed transesterification. In addition, a carbocationic polymerization process was developed for the vinylether monomers that allowed for high molecular weight polymers to be produced without consuming any of the vinyl groups present in the fatty acid portion of the monomers. In addition, the linearity observed between polymer molecular weight and monomer conversion indicated that the polymerization was a living polymerization that yielded a molecular weight distribution of approximately 1.15. The polymer produced from the soybean oil-derived vinylether monomers (polyVESFA) was derivatized to produce both an epoxy-functional derivative (E-polyVESFA) and an acrylate-functional derivative (A- polyVESFA). E-polyVESFA and A-polyVESFA were used to prepare cationic photo-curable coatings and free-radical photocurable coatings, respectively. Compared to SBO-derivatives, the polyVESFA- derivatives provided significantly faster cure kinetics, which was attributed to the much higher number of functional groups per molecule associated with polyVESFA-derivatives resulting in the gel- point being reached at much lower conversion. Reaching the gel-point at lower conversion reduces the relative rate of termination to propagation resulting in an overall increase in cure rate.