In order to improve the performance and biorenewable content of natural plant oil based UV-curable materials, a new, green approach is presented. By chemically introducing cashew nutshell liquid onto the epoxidized soybean oil backbone, followed by epoxidization and acrylation was used as a method to synthesize a novel kind of soy-based UV-curable branched oligomer. This oligomer based coating exhibited higher impact resistance, better crosshatch adhesion, and enhanced thermal and mechanical properties. The improved coating properties can be attributed to the incorporated aromatic ring from cashew nutshell liquid and multi-branched structure of soy-based UV-curable branched oligomer. This approach provided a new direction to the future development of advanced bio-based UV-curable oligomers with reasonably high biorenewable content.
Volume 105, April 2017, Pages 143–148