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Synthesis of Bio-based Epoxy Containing Phosphine Oxide as a Reactive Additive Toward Highly Toughened and Fire-retarded Epoxy Resins

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Abstract

The integration of high mechanical toughness, impact strength as well as excellent flame-retardant properties toward epoxy resins (EPs) have always been a dilemma. The inadequate overall performance of EPs severely restricts their sustainable utilization in engineering aspects over long-term. Herein, a new bio-based agent (diglycidyl ether of magnolol phosphine oxide, referred as DGEMP) derived from magnolol (classified as lignan), extracted from natural plants Magnolia officinalis, was successfully synthesized and further employed as a flame-retardant reactive additive to diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA). As demonstration, the composite resin, DGEBA/15DGEMP (15 wt% DGEMP), achieved an Underwriters Laboratories-94 V-0 rating with a high limiting oxygen index (LOI) value (41.5%). In cone calorimeter tests, it showed that heat release and smoke production were effectively inhibited during combustion, wherein the peak heat release rate (PHRR) value of DGEBA/15DGEMP was reduced by 50% compared to neat DGEBA. Additionally, it exhibited a superior tensile strength (82.8 MPa), toughness (5.11 MJ/m3) and impact strength (36.5 kJ/m2), much higher than that of neat DGEBA (49.7 MPa, 2.05 MJ/m3 and 20.9 kJ/m2). Thus, it is highly anticipated that DGEMP imparts significantly improved mechanical and fire-retarded properties to conventional EPs, which holds a great potential to address the pressing challenges in EP thermosets industry.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholar (No. 2008085J26), Natural Science Foundation in University of Anhui Province (Nos. KJ2021ZD0119 and 2022AH040251), China Scholarship Council (No. 202008340021), Start-up Fund for Distinguished Scholars in Hefei University (No. 20RC37), Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation (No. 2108085QB47) and Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (No. CityU 11208617).

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Energy, Materials and Chemical Engineering, Hefei University, Hefei, 230601, China

    Chunxiang Wei, Tianyu Gao, Yu Xu, Guangjian Dai, San E. Zhu, Wei Yang & Hongdian Lu

  2. Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1EW, UK

    Chunxiang Wei & Ruiting Li

  3. Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 999077, China

    Wenjie Yang & Richard K. K. Yuen

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  1. Chunxiang Wei
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  2. Tianyu Gao
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  3. Yu Xu
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  4. Wenjie Yang
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  9. Wei Yang
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Correspondence to Wei Yang or Hongdian Lu.

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Synthesis of Bio-based Epoxy Containing Phosphine Oxide as a Reactive Additive Toward Highly Toughened and Fire-retarded Epoxy Resins

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Wei, C., Gao, T., Xu, Y. et al. Synthesis of Bio-based Epoxy Containing Phosphine Oxide as a Reactive Additive Toward Highly Toughened and Fire-retarded Epoxy Resins. Chin J Polym Sci 41, 1733–1746 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-023-2932-4

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