Sustainable thermoplastic elastomers derived from cellulose, fatty acid and furfural via ATRP and click chemistry

• Published in: Carbohydrate polymers Vol. 176; pp. 83 - 90
• Main Authors: Yu, Juan, Lu, Chuanwei, Wang, Chunpeng, Wang, Jifu, Fan, Yimin, Chu, Fuxiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 15.11.2017
• Subjects: Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP); Brush copolymers; Cellulose - chemistry; Click Chemistry; Elastomers - chemistry; Ethyl cellulose; Fatty Acids - chemistry; Furaldehyde - chemistry; Polymers; Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared; Thermoplastic elastomers; Thermoplastic elastomers; Brush copolymers; Click chemistry; Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP); Ethyl cellulose
• ISSN: 0144-8617; 1879-1344
• DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2017.08.060

[Display omitted] •Thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) are derived from sustainable Cellulose, Fatty Acid and Furfuryl.•ATRP and Click Chemistry are combined to fabricate the sustainable TPEs with different side chain composition.•Cellulose afford the TPEs with improved mechanical property.•This work provides a sustainable avenue to develop full bio-base materials. Cellulose-based thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) have attracted considerable attention because of their rigid backbone, good mechanical properties, renewable nature and abundance. In the present study, sustainable TPEs based on ethyl cellulose (EC), fatty acid and furfural were generated by the combination of ATRP and “click chemistry”. To fabricate sustainable TPEs with higher toughness, a range of polymers, including mono random-copolymer poly(tetrahydrofurfuryl methacrylate-co-lauryl methacrylate) (P(THFMA-co-LMA), dual polymer side chains PTHFMA and PLMA, and mono-block copolymer PTHFMA-b-PLMA, were designed as side chains to fabricate EC brush copolymers with random, dual or block side chain architectures using the “grafting from” and “grafting onto” methods. The multi-armed structures, chemical compositions and phase separation of these EC brush copolymers were confirmed by FT-IR, 1H NMR, GPC, DSC, TEM and SEM. Overall, three types of EC brush copolymers all exhibited the desired mechanical properties of TPEs. In addition, the EC brush copolymers with dual/block side chain architectures showed higher tensile strength than that of the random polymers with similar compositions.