Polybenzoxazines are evolving as a new class of phenolic resins with a tremendous amount of applications. The ease of structural designing, synthetic procedure, and polymerization reactions are attractive to affect their properties ensuing as an effective substitute for many existing polymers. The nonrenewable origin, toxicity, and increasing cost of petro-based raw materials are alarming issues. Therefore, the emergence of sustainable benzoxazines, especially based on naturally abundant, agro-waste origin cardanol is encouraging as it allows both solventless synthesis of monomers and processing to form highly thermally stable thermoset resins. The inherent functionalities in cardanol benzoxazine provide a platform for further structural modifications to advance their applications as adhesives, composites, and energy storage devices. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Bimlesh Lochab

Chemistry

(SoNS) School of Natural Sciences

Monisha M.

Amarnath N.

Mukherjee S.

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Shiv Nadar University

Macromolecular Chemistry and Physics

Olefin bonds participate in co-reaction with the benzoxazine functionality of the monomer and are one of the strategies used to affect the crosslink density of a polybenzoxazine network. In general, the double bond incorporation in starting material is usually catalyzed by expensive, rare earth metals affecting the sustainability of the reaction. The natural abundance of feedstocks with inherent double bonds may be a powerful platform for the development of novel greener structures, with potential applications in polymers. Here, we report the design, synthesis, and characterization of a biobased non-halogen flame retardant, consisting of naturally occurring phenols, eugenol (E), and cardanol (C). The presence of a covalently linked phosphazene (P) core allowed the synthesis of hexa-functional flame retardant molecules, abbreviated as EP and CP. The chemical structures of the synthesized EP and CP were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), nuclear magnetic resonance (1H, 13C, 31P NMR), and single crystal XRD (only in the case of EP). Their polymerization with cardanol sourced tri-oxazine benzoxazine monomer, C-trisapm, was followed by FTIR, NMR, and DSC studies. The thermal stability and flame retardant properties of the hybrid phosphazene-benzoxazine copolymers was determined by thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), limiting oxygen index (LOI), vertical burning, and smoke density analyses. SEM images of the char residues of the polymers with or without the addition of reactive phosphazene molecules confirmed the intumescent flame retarding mechanism. Current work highlights the utility of sustainable origin non-halogen flame retardant (FR) molecules and their utility in polybenzoxazine chemistry. © Copyright © 2020 Appavoo, Amarnath and Lochab.

Fulltext

Frontiers in Chemistry

Cardanol and Eugenol Sourced Sustainable Non-halogen Flame Retardants for Enhanced Stability of Renewable Polybenzoxazines

Biobased phenols and amines are attractive feedstock in rapid emerging polybenzoxazine thermosets. Renewable benzoxazines are mainly monofunctional due to structure limitation of raw materials, especially amines. Here, we report fully naturally sourced bifunctional benzoxazines by a simple one-step solventless microwave synthesis using cardanol/guaiacol- and carbohydrate-based isomannide diamine (ima). Chirality of ima led to complicated 1H NMR spectra of monomers. Heteronuclear single-quantum coherence (HSQC) and two-dimensional correlated spectroscopy (COSY) NMR and single-crystal X-ray diffraction confirmed the structure and formation of monomers. Polymerization and thermal stability of monomers and polymers were found to be either better than or comparable to widely studied fully and partly petro-based polybenzoxazines. Incorporation of rigid core ima in fully biobased polybenzoxazines showed a glass-transition temperature comparable to their petro-based aromatic diamine counterparts. Exploration of adhesive behavior revealed that the designed polybenzoxazine framework showed 2-fold higher lap shear strength than bisphenol-A (BPA) aniline polybenzoxazine. The current work highlights the utility of higher functionality renewable amines as promising candidates to design future high-performance fully biobased BPA-free polybenzoxazines. Copyright © 2019 American Chemical Society.

ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering

Isomannide-Derived Chiral Rigid Fully Biobased Polybenzoxazines

We report on the preparation of hexa-functional cardanol (renewable phenolic compound) benzoxazine with a phosphazene core (CPN) for use as a greener eco-friendly halogen-free flame retardant reactive additive for the formation of sustainable polyphosphazene polybenzoxazine networks for flame resistant applications. The structure and purity of the monomer was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-, 13C-, 31P NMR) and gel permeation chromatography studies. The CPN monomer showed good compatibility with benzoxazine monomer (CPN0) as suggested by the cocuring studies. The thermal properties of the copolymer can be directly tuned by altering the composition of the monomer blend. The occurrence of phosphazene-phosphazane thermal rearrangement is also suggested for the thermal behavior (thermogravimetry analysis) at higher loading of CPN in the monomer feed ratio. An improvement in mechanical properties of the copolymer with increase in glass transition temperature was confirmed by enhancement in cross-link density as compared to neat polybenzoxazine. The reactive nature and presence of phosphazene core improved both the smoke density rating, vertical burning rating and led to higher limiting oxygen index. The FTIR and scanning electron microscopy studies of residual char supported the formation of functionalities and morphologies favorable to support the flame resistance behavior of polymer by incorporation of reactive benzoxazine with phosphazene core. Finally, we demonstrate that incorporation of cardanol phosphazene network has good compatibility with the polybenzoxazine phenolic thermosets with improvement in flame retardancy. The higher cardanol (65.7\%) and phosphorus content (3.4\%) and reactive nature of synthesized compound is attractive as a sustainable additive with the scope of their utilization with other polymeric resins. © 2017 American Chemical Society.

Eco-Friendly Halogen-Free Flame Retardant Cardanol Polyphosphazene Polybenzoxazine Networks

Despite recent advances in polybenzoxazines (PBzs), especially of sustainable origin, the lowering of the curing temperature still remains a challenge in addressing their exploration in low-temperature processing applications. Innovative iron-based catalysts which are naturally abundant, cost-effective, and with larger surface area could demonstrate a practical, economic and facile approach for the development of iron NPs-polybenzoxazine composites. Here we propose an approach to develop a composite based on smartly-capped iron nanoparticles (NPs) and agro-waste phenolic-sourced cardanol benzoxazine monomer as a one-step solution with the benefits of lowering the curing temperature and providing superparamagnetism. NPs are smartly designed with a variation in the nature of the functionality in the capping agent and are characterized by thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The NPs showed a spherical shape of ∼10 nm in size with appreciable magnetic characteristics. Both iron ions and available functionalities in the capping agent endow benefits in lowering the curing temperature of cardanol benzoxazine (64 °C), and enhancing its maximum thermal stability (34 °C), as determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and TGA, respectively. In addition, the nature of the chemical linkages in the polybenzoxazine network and the initial growth in the molecular weight of the polymer were found to be influenced by iron NPs, as supported by FTIR, nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR), UV-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, and gel permeation chromatography (GPC). The capping-agent-facilitated NPs distribution in the polybenzoxazine matrix was determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM). Polymer nanocomposites even with a 5 wt\% loading of NPs showed good magnetic saturation and superparamagnetic behavior. The present work demonstrated a one-step solution with the incorporation of NPs in a benzoxazine monomer accounting for modification in the properties of polybenzoxazine composites with the benefits of magnetism. © 2018 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Sustainable one-step strategy towards low temperature curable superparamagnetic composite based on smartly designed iron nanoparticles and cardanol benzoxazine

High-energy electrochemical storage containing earth abundant materials could be a choice for future battery development. Recent research reports indicated the possibility of room-temperature sodium-ion-sulfur chemistry for large storage including smart grids. Here, we report a room-temperature sodium-sulfur battery cathode that will address the native downsides of a sodium-sulfur battery, such as polysulfide shuttling and low electrical conductivity of elemental sulfur. In this Letter, we use a sustainable route which ensures a large sulfur confinement (i.e., ∼90 wt \%) in the cathode structure. The sulfur-embedded polymer is realized via thermal ring-opening polymerization of benzoxazine in the presence of elemental sulfur (CS90) and later composite with reduced graphene oxide (rGO). The resulting CS90 allows a homogeneous distribution of sulfur due to in situ formation of the polymer backbone and allows maximum utilization of sulfur. This unique electrode structure bestows CS90-rGO with an excellent Coulombic efficiency (99\%) and healthy cycle life. © 2017 American Chemical Society.

ACS Energy Letters

Sulfur Copolymer: A New Cathode Structure for Room-Temperature Sodium-Sulfur Batteries

Alumina nanoparticles were incorporated in blends of benzoxazine monomers synthesized from bio- and petrobased phenols, cardanol and bisphenol A, respectively, by way of a one-pot solventless methodology. The structures of the monomers were characterized by proton (1H) nuclear magnetic resonance and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Thermal characterization was performed using differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetry. The size of bare alumina nanoparticles and those in the polymer nanocomposite was analyzed by powder X-ray diffraction. Blending of alumina particles resulted in lowering of curing temperature of benzoxazine monomer. The effect of nanoparticle incorporation was reflected in the curing behavior and adhesive properties. The adhesive strength is found to be dependent on whether solution or solventless processing is used and on the weight percent of the nanoparticles in the monomer blend. The replacement of 75\% bisphenol A content with cardanol in the benzoxazine resulted in a copolymer which showed a better or comparable adhesive strength. The adhesion was found to improve further with the incorporation of alumina nanoparticles. The lower viscosity of cardanol-based benzoxazine allowed both solventless synthesis and application of monomers, which is a way forward toward greener chemistry and low volatile organic compound processing strategies. © 2017 ICE Publishing. All rights reserved.

Green Materials

Nanoparticles as curing and adhesive aid for biobased and petrobased polybenzoxazines

This chapter explores the utility of cardanol as a potential feedstock for the synthesis of benzoxazine monomers and polymers. Cardanol is a renewable phenolic compound obtained from the plant Anacardium occidentale L. Commercially it is produced as cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL) as a byproduct of cashew nut processing. It is currently under exploration as a valuable phenolic reagent in benzoxazine monomers and polymers. Cardanol-based benzoxazines are attractive monomers due to their sustainable aspect, opportunities for solventless synthesis, and processing. To date, Cardanol monomers have primarily been utilized for adhesive and composite applications, but they are ideal candidates for a variety of other applications, which need further exploration. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.