Design of New Camelina Oil-Based Hydrophilic Monomers for Novel Polymeric Materials

Triglyceride-based monomers represent a competitive alternative to petrochemical resources in the macromolecular compounds area. In the current study, several types of hydrophilic camelina oil (CO)-based monomers were synthesized using tunable experimental protocols that involve three different steps: first-conversion of the double bonds into epoxy rings, second-partial opening of the epoxy rings and methacrylic groups grafting and last-opening of the unreacted epoxy rings and hydrophilic units attaching. 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR and FTIR spectroscopy demonstrate the success of the CO functionalization with polymerizable and hydrophilic moieties-polyethylene glycol units-with different molecular weights, exhibiting self-emulsifiable properties. Several bulk and emulsion polymerization tests were performed for the synthesized monomers and their ability to build polymer networks using different photo-chemical procedures (using visible and UV radiations respectively) was demonstrated, without additional surfactants. FTIR spectroscopy indicates the polymerization success by the disappearance of the specific bands assigned to the double bonds from methacrylic groups and thermogravimetric analysis demonstrates that the emulsion polymerization leads to materials with an improved thermostability.