Issue 45, 2017, Issue in Progress

Microwave-assisted rapid synthesis of a polyether from a plant oil derived monomer and its optimization by Box–Behnken design

Abstract

In this study, a new strategy for making polyethers from α-olefin (1-decene) was developed using microwave irradiation and compared with a conventional method. The olefin was epoxidized and subjected to catalytic polymerization using both conventional and microwave synthesis techniques. The conventional epoxidation reaction of 1-decene took 1 hour while microwave-assisted epoxidation was completed in ∼5 minutes. A three-factor, three-level Box–Behnken response surface design was employed to investigate the effect of the process parameters such as time, temperature, and the solvent–monomer ratios on the yield of the ring-opening polymerization of 1,2-epoxydecane using MMAO-12/2,4-pentanedione. The obtained experimental data were fitted to a transferred second-order polynomial equation using multiple regression analysis with a high coefficient of determination (R2) value of 0.9881. Interestingly, the optimal predicted parameters based on all independent variables (reaction time 9.97 min, the temperature 99.69 °C, and solvent to monomer ratio 5.27 : 5) were determined by a maximum polyether yield of 82.51%, which was further confirmed by validation experiments. The synthesized polymers were characterized by using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-NMR), attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and size exclusion chromatography (SEC). A high molecular weight polyether was synthesized with a melting temperature as high as 88.64 °C and a decomposition in the range of 325–418 °C. The rapid synthesis of a biopolyether with high molecular mass is extremely attractive both from an academic and industrial point of views.

Graphical abstract: Microwave-assisted rapid synthesis of a polyether from a plant oil derived monomer and its optimization by Box–Behnken design

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
20 Mar 2017
Accepted
20 May 2017
First published
31 May 2017
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2017,7, 27946-27959

Microwave-assisted rapid synthesis of a polyether from a plant oil derived monomer and its optimization by Box–Behnken design

R. Ahmadi and A. Ullah, RSC Adv., 2017, 7, 27946 DOI: 10.1039/C7RA03278A

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