Manufacturing of vegetable oils-based epoxy and composites for structural applications

Epoxidized vegetable oil (EVO) is one of the largest industrial applications of vegetable oils (VOs) and is widely used as a plasticizer and as a synthetic intermediate for polyol or unsaturated polyester. However, the utility of EVO as monomer for high performance epoxy thermoset polymer is limited by its reactivity and by the resulting physical properties. Herein, VO-based epoxy monomers, i.e., glycidyl esters of epoxidized fatty acids derived from soybean oil (EGS) or linseed oil (EGL), have been synthesized and were benchmarked against commercial available diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) and also epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) controls. EGS and EGL possessed higher oxirane content, more reactivity and lower viscosity than ESO or epoxidized linseed oil (ELO), provided better compatibility with DGEBA as a reactive diluent, and yielded thermally and mechanically stronger polymers than polymers obtained using ESO. Glass transition temperatures (Tg) of the VO-based epoxy thermoset polymers were mostly a function of monomer oxirane content with some added structural influences of epoxy reactivity, and presence of a pendant chain. Organo-modified montmorillonite clay (OMMT) and long glass fiber reinforced composites (FRC) were efficiently manufactured using anhydride cured EGS as matrices. The OMMT nanocomposites showed higher mechanical and thermal strength than the neat polymers but were also dependent on the dispersion techniques and the clay concentration. Surprisingly, the neat EGS-anhydride matrix FRC showed comparable properties, such as flexural and impact strengths and slightly lower Tg, versus DGEBA based counterparts. These high performance monomers, polymers, and composites have potential to replace petroleum-based epoxy as value-added products from VOs compared to EVOs --Abstract, page iv