Green Polymer Foam from Sustainable Renewable Resources and Its Applications

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Circular and Green Polymer Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 2546

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Institute of Polymers, Composite and Biomaterials, National Research Council, Piazzale Enrico Fermi, 80055 Portici, Italy
Interests: polymeric materials; nanomaterials; material characterization; polymers; nanomaterials synthesis; nanostructured materials; sem analysis; materials; material characteristics; materials testing

Special Issue Information

This Special Issue, “Green Polymer Foam from Sustainable Renewable Resources and Its Applications”, can be seen as one of those actions taken in order to pursue the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions for industrial production lines by 2030, promoting the divulgation of new ideas and findings to be included in the paradigm of the renewed sensitivity for what concerns environmental issue such as global warming and climate change.
The last centuries, also called the Anthropocene by some scientists due to the various human activities designed for the evolution and growth of our society, have had a significant influence on Earth, in particular on its biodiversity, geomorphology, climate, biogeography, and stratigraphy. For this reason, following the stream of the recovered awareness of the health of the environment and what our habitat will look like in a few years from now, worrying for the next generations, a shift in the behavior of people has happened worldwide, giving rise to new ecological policies and enabling the production and studies of environmentally friendly polymer products obtained starting from renewable and sustainable reagents.
In this view, polymer foams represent a great part of the consumer industry. Nowadays, the majority of the production (precursors, catalysts, blowing agents, etc.) draws directly on oil production, which ensures the feedstock, as well as the required attributes of the final product, especially in terms of thermal conductivity, aging behavior, and mechanical properties.
For these reasons, the present Special Issue wishes to give a voice to the research in this field. It is open to original, cross-pollinated, and multidisciplinary articles and reviews dealing with such subjects including the design and development of innovative foam materials; theoretical modeling for cutting-edge functionalities, components, and their technologies; as well as applications under relevant conditions at the prototype level for aerospace, automotive, building, and transport networks.

Dr. Giuseppe Cesare Lama
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • green chemistry
  • green polymer foams
  • thermal conductivity
  • mechanical properties
  • sustainability
  • renewable resources
  • environmentally friendly materials
  • multi-functional foams

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

21 pages, 4370 KiB  
Article
Effect of Different Methods to Synthesize Polyol-Grafted-Cellulose Nanocrystals as Inter-Active Filler in Bio-Based Polyurethane Foams
by Dario Fontana, Federica Recupido, Giuseppe Cesare Lama, Jize Liu, Laura Boggioni, Selena Silvano, Marino Lavorgna and Letizia Verdolotti
Polymers 2023, 15(4), 923; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15040923 - 12 Feb 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1910
Abstract
Currently, the scientific community has spent a lot of effort in developing “green” and environmentally friendly processes and products, due the contemporary problems connected to pollution and climate change. Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are at the forefront of current research due to their multifunctional [...] Read more.
Currently, the scientific community has spent a lot of effort in developing “green” and environmentally friendly processes and products, due the contemporary problems connected to pollution and climate change. Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) are at the forefront of current research due to their multifunctional characteristics of biocompatibility, high mechanical properties, specific surface area, tunable surface chemistry and renewability. However, despite these many advantages, their inherent hydrophilicity poses a substantial challenge for the application of CNCs as a reinforcing filler in polymers, as it complicates their dispersion in hydrophobic polymeric matrices, such as polyurethane foams, often resulting in aggregate structures that compromise their properties. The manipulation and fine-tuning of the interfacial properties of CNCs is a crucial step to exploit their full potential in the development of new materials. In this respect, starting from an aqueous dispersion of CNCs, two different strategies were used to properly functionalize fillers: (i) freeze drying, solubilization in DMA/LiCl media and subsequent grafting with bio-based polyols; (ii) solvent exchange and subsequent grafting with bio-based polyols. The influence of the two functionalization methods on the chemical and thermal properties of CNCs was examined. In both cases, the role of the two bio-based polyols on filler functionalization was elucidated. Afterwards, the functionalized CNCs were used at 5 wt% to produce bio-based composite polyurethane foams and their effect on the morphological, thermal and mechanical properties was examined. It was found that CNCs modified through freeze drying, solubilization and bio-polyols grafting exhibited remarkably higher thermal stability (i.e., degradation stages > 100 °C) with respect to the unmodified freeze dried-CNCs. In addition, the use of the two grafting bio-polyols influenced the functionalization process, corresponding to different amount of grafted-silane-polyol and leading to different chemico-physical characteristics of the obtained CNCs. This was translated to higher thermal stability as well as improved functional and mechanical performances of the produced bio-based composite PUR foams with respect of the unmodified CNCs-composite ones (the best case attained compressive strength values three times more). Solvent exchange route slightly improved the thermal stability of the obtained CNCs; however; the so-obtained CNCs could not be properly dispersed within the polyurethane matrix, due to filler aggregation. Full article
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