Researchers have succeeded in developing a new method of using vegetable oils, such as olive and linseed oil, for the production of polyurethane, a plastic material used in a variety of everyday products.
[Translation by Dr. Nachmani Moshe]
Researchers have succeeded in developing a new method of using vegetable oils, such as olive and linseed oil, for the production of polyurethane, a plastic material used in a variety of everyday products.
The researchers, from the School of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Engineering of the University of Washington, and led by Professor Michael Kessler, published their findings in the journal
Scientific Applied Materials & Interfaces. polyurethane (Polyurethane, Wikipedia) is a particularly strong and stable material, and also waterproof, but the researchers would like to find a more environmentally friendly alternative to this product based on raw materials derived from petroleum products. In 2010, approximately 14 million tons of polyurethane were produced, and forecasts predict that this production will increase by 30% by 2016.
Despite the fact that there are already several types of polyurethanes made from vegetable materials on the market, the research group developed a new method that uses vegetable oils to produce materials with a wide range of flexibility, rigidity and structure. Vegetable oils are inexpensive, highly available, renewable and genetically engineered.
As part of the study, the researchers prepared polyurethane using olive, canola, grape seed, flax seed and castor oils. While other researchers face the challenge of using petroleum-based solvents, the research team did not use any such solvents or catalysts during their reaction. In order to prepare polyurethane, manufacturers combine two types of chemical compounds in one reaction. One of the reactants is a polyol, which is a compound with several hydroxyl-type functional groups available for reaction. Some oils, such as linseed oil, have five or six active hydroxyl sites, which makes the final material obtained from them more rigid. Other oils, for example olive oil, have a lower number of such groups, and thus the final material obtained from them will be more flexible.
"What is unique about our research is specifically how we create the polyols," said the lead researcher, who compared the process to a kind of Lego game. "It's the same idea with these chemical groups - they join together to form a chemical bond. The innovation in our work lies in the fact that these polyurethanes are created with the help of a new chemistry that utilizes a combination of a fatty acid derived from castor oil and chemically modified vegetable oils," he adds and explains.
