Fully Bio-Based Thermosetting Polyurethanes from Bio-Based Polyols and Isocyanates

The trend towards the utilization of bioresources for the manufacturing of polymers has led industry players to bring to the market new monomers. In this work, we studied 3 polyisocyanates and 2 polyols with high renewable carbon contents, namely L-lysine ethyl ester diisocyanate (LDI), pentamethylene-diisocyanate (PDI) isocyanurate trimer, and hexamethylene-diisocyanate (HDI) allophanate as the isocyanates, as well as castor oil and polypropanediol as the polyols. These monomers are commercially available at a large scale and were used in direct formulations or used as prepolymers. Thermosetting polymers with T(g) values ranging from −41 to +21 °C and thermal stabilities of up to 300 °C were obtained, and the polymerization was studied using NMR, DSC, and rheology. Cured materials were also characterized using FTIR, DMA, gel content, and swelling index determinations. These high bio-based content materials can successfully be obtained and could be used as alternatives to petro-based materials.