Tung Oil Based Monomer for Thermosetting Polymers: Synthesis, Characterization, and Copolymerization with Styrene

A tung oil (TO) based monomer for rigid thermosetting polymer was synthesized, characterized, and copolymerized with styrene in this study. Tung oil was alcoholyzed with pentaerythritol (PER) to get tung oil pentaerythritol alcoholysis products (TOPER), and the optimized conditions were explored according to the yields of TOPER analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The resulting alcoholysis products were maleinated to form tung oil maleate half ester (TOPERMA), and the reaction conditions were determined by monitoring the reaction extents of TOPER and maleic anhydride (MA) with HNMR spectroscopy. The TO alcoholysis and maleinization reaction products were characterized by IR, HNMR, and electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) techniques. At last, the TOPERMA mixture was cured with styrene (St), and the initiator tert-butyl peroxy benzoate (TPB). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was employed to characterize the curing process. Mechanical properties of the cured TOPERMA/St resin further confirmed the best procedure for the maleinization reaction. The loading of TO reached about 30% weight of the resulting thermosetting polymer. This promising material from renewable resources can be a potential substitution for petroleum products when used as sheet molding compounds.