Synthesis, characterization and soil burial degradation of biobased polyurethanes

Polyurethanes (Pus) derived from castor oil have emerged due to the large availability and sustainable characteristics of castor oil. However, these polymers are prepared through tedious and/or energy-intensive procedures or using high volatile and/or toxic reagents, such as volatile isocyanates or epoxides. Furthermore, poor investigation has been carried out to design castor-oil derived PUs with degradable characteristics or thorough specifically sustainable synthetic procedures. Herein, castor-oil derived PU with more than 90% biomass-derived carbon content and enhanced degradable features was prepared through a simple, eco-friendly (E-factor: 0.2), and scalable up procedure, employing a recently developed commercially available bio-mass derived (61% bio-based carbon content) low-volatile polymeric isocyanate. The novel material was compared with a castor-oil derived PU prepared with a commercially available fossil-based isocyanate counterpart. The different castor oil-derived PUs were investigated by means of water uptake, soil burial degradation and disintegrability test in compost. Characterization analyses, including TGA, DSC, ATR-FTIR and SEM, were carried out both prior and after degradation tests.