Preparation and characterization of inverse vulcanized copolymers using taramira oil

Abstract

Inverse vulcanization reaction has been previously utilized in diverse range of studies however, those studies used petroleum derived, terpenes and edible vegetable oils as monomers for this reaction. The depleting abundance, high synthesis and purification cost and high food market demand make them less sustainable feedstocks. Herein, we reported the synthesis of the inverse vulcanized copolymers utilizing abundantly available non-edible oil as alternative monomer. The properties of the obtained copolymers were evaluated using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Powdered X-ray Diffractogram (p-XRD). Disappearance of the cis alkene characteristics (at 1660 and 3009 cm-1) peaks from spectra of all copolymers and appearance of new peak at 804 cm-1 confirms the formation of the copolymer and presence of some unreacted sulfur was revealed by p-XRD as some crystalline peaks appeared in the diffractogram. SEM images revealed the composite morphology of copolymers and confirmed the presence of unreacted sulfur particles. So, it can be concluded that taramira oil can be successfully used as an alternative monomer to edible oil with same results.