Nanostructuring Biobased Epoxy Resin with PEO-PPO-PEO Block Copolymer

Irati Barandiaran; Joseba Gomez-Hermoso-de-Mendoza; Junkal Gutierrez; Agnieszka Tercjak; Galder Kortaberria

doi:10.3390/polym15051216

Nanostructuring Biobased Epoxy Resin with PEO-PPO-PEO Block Copolymer

Polymers (Basel). 2023 Feb 28;15(5):1216. doi: 10.3390/polym15051216.

Authors

Irati Barandiaran^{1

2}, Joseba Gomez-Hermoso-de-Mendoza¹, Junkal Gutierrez¹, Agnieszka Tercjak¹, Galder Kortaberria¹

Affiliations

¹ Group 'Materials + Technologies' (GMT), Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering of Gipuzkoa, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Plaza Europa 1, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain.
² Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Paseo de la Universidad, 7, 01006 Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.

Abstract

A biobased diglycidyl ether of vanillin (DGEVA) epoxy resin was nanostructured by poly(ethylene oxide-b-propylene oxide-b-ethylene oxide) (PEO-PPO-PEO) triblock copolymer. Due to the miscibility/immiscibility properties of the triblock copolymer in DGEVA resin, different morphologies were obtained depending on the triblock copolymer amount. A hexagonally packed cylinder morphology was kept until reaching 30 wt% of PEO-PPO-PEO content, while a more complex three-phase morphology was obtained for 50 wt%, in which large worm-like PPO domains appear surrounded by two different phases, one of them rich in PEO and another phase rich in cured DGEVA. UV-vis measurements show that the transmittance is reduced with the increase in triblock copolymer content, especially at 50 wt%, probably due to the presence of PEO crystals detected by calorimetry.

Keywords: biobased; block copolymer; epoxy; nanostructuring.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades, grant number PID2021-126417NB-I00 and by the Gobierno Vasco/Eusko Jaurlaritza, grant number IT1690-22.