The 7-membered cyclic thionolactone, ε-thionocaprolactone (TCL), undergoes radical copolymerization with vinyl esters to form degradable copolymers. While most radical ring-opening monomers require laborious and low-yielding syntheses, TCL can be prepared...

The increasing concern about the environmental impact of physical blowing agents (PBAs) favours the use of chemical blowing agents (CBAs) to replace controversial PBAs. Blowing agents are key compounds in order to obtain polymer foams. Indeed, blowing agents are crucial additives that release gas needed to blow polymer foams. CBA compounds have been widely studied in recent decades, and today if new CBA are studied, one of the challenges remains to adapt the use of CBA to new polymers or new formulations. Only a handful of books present different CBAs commercially available but in these documents, the presentation of CBAs is not enough complete to understand potential or limits. Thus, our work is focused on the most common, both inorganic and organic chemical blowing agents and highlights the specifications of these CBAs, with their advantages and drawbacks, and finally presents promising perspectives.

This study highlights the potential of β-hydroxy amines as building blocks for aza-Michael CANs.

No abstract

Polyurethane (PU) foams are very common materials that have found many applications over the years. Their use is constantly improving due to their unique physical properties and easy blowing which does not require the addition of a blowing agent. Greener routes have been explored in the recent years to replace isocyanates. One of the most promising routes is leading to polyhydroxyurethanes (PHU). However, with PHUs, external blowing agent are usually required to obtain a foam. Thus, the work focuses on PHU foam synthesis using in situ reaction to produce NIPU foam. Hence, the aminolysis of thiocyclic carbonate triggers Pearson reaction between released thiols and cyclic carbonates which serves as a chemical blowing agent.

We report a post-polymerization modification strategy to functionalize methacrylic copolymers through enol-ester transesterification.

No abstract

The world has been facing a major resource crisis in the last few decades. In order to tackle such environmental issues, new solutions have to be found in order to replace fossil resources by more sustainable, biobased resources. One of the most promising biobased resources are vegetable oils, which are used as building blocks for renewable polymer synthesis. Industrial productions and the corresponding chemical structures make oleochemistry very attractive. Nevertheless, such building blocks have to compete with usual petrol-based monomers. Hence, this work focuses on the development of new foams in order to replace toxic isocyanate-based polyurethanes foams. Different efficient soft foams were obtained for the first time by aza-Michael reactions, using acrylated soybean oils and biobased amines, with an original chemical blowing system. Properties of the foams have been studied in order to determine the influence of the different structures in terms of morphologies, glass transition, hardness or deformation, etc. Homogeneous open-cell foams with a pore size from 0.1 to 0.5 mm were obtained. Flexible foams were obtained with glass transition from −20 to −7 °C. These soft foams demonstrated a time recovery of about a few seconds and exhibited similar properties to equivalent commercial fossil-polyurethane foams, without the use of highly toxic chemicals.