Vegetable oil-based polymeric materials always suffer
from relatively poor performance, such as
lower tensile strength and glass transition temperatures, than petroleum-based
polymeric materials, which greatly limit their practical applications.
In this study, octahydro-2,5-pentalenediol (OPD) was synthesized from
naturally occurring citric acid and used together with castor oil
as the polyol blends for the production of bio-based waterborne polyurethane
(PU) dispersions (PUDs). The effects of the OPD contents on the particle
size and ζ potential of the resulting polyurethane dispersion,
and the thermal stability, mechanical properties, and hydrophilicity
of the resulting polyurethane films were systematically investigated.
Taking advantage of the rigid cyclic structures of the OPD and the
flexible fatty acid chain of castor oil, waterborne polyurethane (WPU)
films with tailorable mechanical performance ranging from elastomeric
polymers to rigid plastics were successfully prepared and characterized.
The tensile strength of the samples increases from 9.5 to 22.3 MPa
with the ratio between OPD and castor oil increasing from 0:10 to
5:5, whereas their elongation at break decreases from 192 to 12%.
A significant increase in the glass transition temperature, transparency,
and anticorrosive properties was observed for the resulting polyurethane
films with increasing the OPD content. However, the thermal stability
of the PU films exhibited a slight decrease as the OPD content increased.
Moreover, the water contact angle exhibited a slight increase for
the polyurethane films prepared from polyol blends compared to the
WPU film prepared from pure castor oil. This work provides a novel
route to tailor the performance of vegetable oil-based waterborne
polyurethanes through the incorporation of rigid cyclic rings into
soft polymer networks.
The rational design and construction of cost‐effective nickel‐based phosphide or sulfide (photo)electrocatalysts for hydrogen production from water splitting has sparked a huge investigation surge in recent years. Whereas, nickel phosphides (NixPy) possess more than ten stoichiometric compositions with different crystalline. Constructing NixPy with well crystalline and revealing their intrinsic catalytic mechanism at atomic/molecular levels remains a great challenge. Herein, an easy‐to‐follow phase‐controllable phosphating strategy is first proposed to prepare well crystalline NixPy (Ni3P and Ni12P5) modified CdS@Ni3S2 heterojunction electrocatalysts. It is found that Ni3P modified CdS@Ni3S2 (CdS@Ni3S2/Ni3P) exhibits remarkable stability and bifunctional electrocatalytic activities in both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Density functional theory results suggest that P–Ni sites and P sites in CdS@Ni3S2/Ni3P, respectively, serve as OER and HER active sites during electrocatalytic water splitting processes. Moreover, benefiting from the advantageous photocatalyst@electrocatalyst core@shell structure, CdS@Ni3S2/Ni3P delivers an advantaged photoassisted electrocatalytic water splitting property. The champion electrical to hydrogen and solar to hydrogen energy conversion efficiencies of CdS@Ni3S2/Ni3P, respectively, reach 93.35% and 4.65%. This work will provide a general guidance for synergistically using solar energy and electric energy for large‐scale H2 production from water splitting.
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