| Summary: | The synthesis of polymers from renewable materials is increasingly becoming of socioeconomic importance; this consumer-led change has caused many industries to move away from fossil fuel based raw materials towards sustainable biobased materials. Croda Ltd is an international speciality chemicals company with a history of using sustainable biobased materials as the key raw ingredients in their products. The Stockman-Howdle collaboration has previously successfully synthesised a range of poly(acrylates) from terpenes, however to our knowledge the formation of renewable polyacrylamides from terpenes has yet to be explored. Polyacrylamides are used in a wide range of applications from drug delivery to contact lenses to wastewater treatment, and with a project market size of over 10 billion US dollars by 2024 renewable alternatives are urgently needed.
During this project, a library of renewable polyacrylamides have been synthesised in good to excellent yields on a multigram scale. The monomers have been synthesised from terpenes found in the oils of many coniferous trees, citrus peel, spearmint, caraway seeds and many other natural and waste sources. The Ritter reaction and the Overman reaction, two named reactions known for the introduction of nitrogen functionalities, were employed for the synthesis of novel the terpene-derived acrylamide monomers. These were then polymerised and copolymerised with high conversions using a variety of different free radical polymerisations to give the corresponding polyacrylamides. These polymers have then been tested for various applications in collaboration with Croda to characterise their individual properties. Hydrophilic, hydrophobic and amphiphilic polymers have been formed which have a wide range of viscosities and Tgs from 46 - 213 °C with potential applications including emulsifiers, protective hydrophobic coatings and non-ionic dispersants.
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