Castor oil as a potential renewable resource for the production of functional materials

Abstract

Castor oil is increasingly becoming an important bio-based raw material for industrial applications. The oil is nonedible and can be extracted from castor seeds from the castor plant belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae. The oil is a mixture of saturated and unsaturated fatty acid esters linked to a glycerol. The presence of hydroxyl group, a double bond, carboxylic group and a long chain hydrocarbon in ricinoleic acid (a major component of the oil), offer several possibilities of transforming it into variety of materials. The oil is thus a potential alternative to petroleum-based starting chemicals for the production of materials with variety of properties. Despite this huge potential, very little has recently been reviewed on the use of castor oil as a bio-resource in the production of functional materials. This review therefore highlights the potential of castor oil in the production of these diverse materials with their projected global market potential. The review gives the background information of castor oil and its geographical availability, the properties and its uses as bio-based resource for synthesis of various materials. The review further highlights on the use of castor oil or ricinoleic acid as a green capping agent in the synthesis of nanomaterials.

Castor oil: a suitable green source of capping agent for nanoparticle syntheses and facile surface functionalization

“…It is considered a very important bioresource material for a wide variety of applications [19]. The triglycerides of CO consist of fatty acids (FAs), of which approximately 90% is ricinoleic acid (RA), a hydroxylated monounsaturated 18-carbon carboxylic acid (figure 1).…”

Microwave-Assisted Catalytic Synthesis of Bio-Based Copolymers from Waste Cooking Oil

“…After that, the reactions were further evaluated at 100 °C by lowering the catalyst and co-catalyst ratio from 1/0.8 to 0.1/0.1 to get their optimum concentration (Table 1, entry 8-12). It was found that lowering the catalyst and co-catalyst ratio results in a gradual decrease of copolymers average molecular weights from 4950 g/mol to 3100 g/mol (Table 1, entry [8][9][10][11][12]. No improvement in molecular weight was observed even when reaction time was increased from 30 to 50 min (Table 1, entry 10 and 11).…”

“…Recently, there have been various approaches and attempts described for the conversion of fatty acids from natural oils [10][11][12][13]. Fatty acid triglycerides from natural oils contain functional moieties, which are limited to certain types of reactions, and need chemical modification to improve their reactivity for the production of higher value products.…”

Recent Advancement in Plant Oil Derived Polyol‐Based Polyurethane Foam for Future Perspective: A Review

“…It was observed that with increasing castor oil content into PUF composition rigidity increased. However, PUF derived from unmodified CO has a relatively low modulus, low thermal stability, and low flame‐retardant properties high curing time due to a secondary hydroxyl group and needs further modification . Recently, Hejna et al .…”