Design, Synthesis and Thermo-chemical Properties of Rosin Vinyl Imidazolium Based Compounds as Potential Advanced Biocompatible Materials

Rosin is a natural material extracted from the pine tree that is vastly used as an adhesive in the construction industry. It chemically consists of cyclic carboxylic structure that is known as rosin acids or abietic acid and other isomers. The abietic acid or/and its isomers can structurally be altered to design for different applications. Herein we envisage the potentials of altering the rosin structure to investigate its thermal and physicochemical properties for advanced material applications. In this regard we have utilised the potassium rosinate (rosin soap) also known as the saponified rosin. Saponified rosin is reacted through an anion exchange metathesis process promoted by ultrasound, with either an ionic liquid or a poly(ionic liquid), namely the 3-octyl-1-vinylimidazolium bromide and the poly (3-octyl-1-vinylimidazolium bromide) as a scope to improve thermal and mechanical applications. The structures of these new compounds were determined using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The rosin/ionic liquid based compound found to be a better fitting candidate for advanced material applications, due to significant improvement in the thermal stability compared to the crude rosin (up to 70 °C raise in the thermal degradation) and promising mechanical characters such as elasticity and malleability.