Biodegradable polyurethane elastomers prepared from isocyanate-terminated poly(ethylene adipate), castor oil, and glycerol

✍ Scribed by Naozumi Teramoto; Yuichi Saitoh; Atsuo Takahashi; Mitsuhiro Shibata

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 147 KB
• Volume: 115
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/app.30019

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The curing reaction of tolylene‐2,4‐diisocyanate‐terminated poly(ethylene adipate) (PEA‐TDI) with a mixture of castor oil (CO) and glycerol (GO) with a NCO/OH ratio of 1.0 at 150°C gave crosslinked polyurethane (CO/GO‐PU). All the polyurethanes were elastomeric materials at room temperature. The glass‐transition temperature of the CO/GO‐PU increased with decreasing CO/GO ratio. All the cured polyurethanes had a higher 5% weight loss temperature than PEA‐TDI. The tensile strength and modulus of the polyurethanes increased with decreasing CO/GO ratio, and tensile residual strain after 300% elongation for all the CO/GO‐PUs was almost 0. All the polyurethanes had biodegradability, when measured by a biochemical oxygen demand method in an aqueous medium using activated sludge. The rate of the biodegradation of the polyurethanes increased with an increase of CO/GO ratio. The crosslinked CO‐PU showed much higher biodegradability than the linear PEA‐TDI. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010