Renewable Furan-Based Epoxy Resins Derived from 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural and Furfural
Yuan Jiang, Jie Yun, Xiangcheng Pan
Abstract
The rapid depletion of oil reserves has intensified interest in research on the preparation of biobased polymers derived from renewable resources. Among biomass-based platform chemicals, furan-based compounds are a suitable replacement for petro-sourced chemicals because of their aromatic characteristics and sustainability. In this work, we report a mild and scalable synthesis of two types of furan-based diepoxide monomers from readily available 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and furfural. Various diamines were employed as the curing agents, and a series of biobased epoxy/amine systems was subsequently prepared. Evaluation of thermal and mechanical performance of the cured epoxy resins demonstrated that synthetic furan-based epoxy resins have the potential to complement current phenyl-based polymer materials.