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Fire-retardant, anti-dripping, biodegradable and biobased polyurethane elastomers enabled by hydrogen-bonding with cellulose nanocrystals

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Abstract

Thermoplastic polyurethane (PU) elastomers have attracted significant attention because of their many important industrial applications. However, the creation of fire-retardant and anti-dripping PU elastomers has remained a grant challenge due to the lack of crosslinking and weak interchain interactions. Herein, we report a mechanically robust, biodegradable, fire-retardant, and anti-dripping biobased PU elastomer with excellent biodegradability using an abietic acid-based compound as hard segments and polycaprolactone diol (PCL) as soft segments, followed by physically crosslinking with cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) through dynamic hydrogen-bonding. The resultant elastomer shows the balanced mechanical and fire-retardant properties, e.g., a tensile strength and break strain of 9.1 MPa and 560%, a self-extinguishing ability (V-0 rating in UL-94 testing), and an anti-dripping behavior. Moreover, the as-developed PU can be completely degraded in 1.0 wt.% lipase solution at 37 °C in 60 days, arising from the catalytic and wicking effect of CNC on PU chains. This work provides an innovative and versatile strategy for constructing robust, fire-retardant, anti-dripping, and biodegradable PU elastomers, which hold great promise for practical applications in electronic and automobile sectors.

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Acknowledgements

This work acknowledged the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 32301545 and 32071712), the Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Biomass Energy and Materials (No. JSBEM-S-202312), and the Australian Research Council (Nos. FT190100188 and LP230100278).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Chemical Industry of Forest Products, Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF), Nanjing, 210042, China

    Yijiao Xue, Tianchen Zhang, Meng Zhang & Yonghong Zhou

  2. School of Chemical Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld, 4072, Australia

    Hong Peng

  3. Department of Polymer Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Zhewen Ma

  4. School of Agriculture and Environmental Science, Toowoomba, Qld, 4300, Australia

    Mark Lynch, Zhezhe Zhou & Pingan Song

  5. Centre for Future Materials, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Qld, 4300, Australia

    Toan Dinh & Pingan Song

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  1. Yijiao Xue
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  2. Tianchen Zhang
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  3. Hong Peng
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  4. Zhewen Ma
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  5. Meng Zhang
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  6. Mark Lynch
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  7. Toan Dinh
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  8. Zhezhe Zhou
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  9. Yonghong Zhou
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  10. Pingan Song
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Meng Zhang or Pingan Song.

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12274_2023_6397_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Fire-retardant, anti-dripping, biodegradable and biobased polyurethane elastomers enabled by hydrogen-bonding with cellulose nanocrystals

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Xue, Y., Zhang, T., Peng, H. et al. Fire-retardant, anti-dripping, biodegradable and biobased polyurethane elastomers enabled by hydrogen-bonding with cellulose nanocrystals. Nano Res. 17, 2186–2194 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6397-0

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