Preparation of degradable vegetable oil-based waterborne polyurethane with tunable mechanical and thermal properties

[Display omitted] •Synthesis of vegetable oil-based waterborne polyurethane with different R value.•Performances of polyurethane was adjusted by increasing R values.•Polyurethane films can be fully degraded in the 5 wt% sodium hydroxide.•The possible degradation mechanism was proved via FT-IR, tensile strength and SEM. In this study, the fully degradable soybean oil-based waterborne polyurethanes (SWPU) were prepared, and the mechanical properties, thermal properties and hydrophilicity of SWPU films were adjusted by changing the R value. First, soybean oil-based polyol was fabricated via epoxy soybean oil and ricinoleic acid in the absence of solvent and catalyst. Then, the resulting polyol was mixed with isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI), dimethylolpropionic acid (DMPA), trimethylamine (TEA) and ethylenediamine (EDA) to synthesize polyurethane emulsion with different R value (the molar ration of –NCO/–OH). The result showed that as the R value increased, the tensile strength of SWPU film was increased from 10.02 to 27.32 MPa, the initial decomposition temperature of polyurethane films was improved from 201 ℃ to 246 ℃, the Tg,h was increased from 68 to 130 ℃ and the water contact angle of SWPU films were enhanced from 82.4° to 95.5°. It can be explained that the degree of crosslinking of the polyurethane elastomer was improved and the interaction of the molecular chains became stronger with larger R value. Also, all SWPU films were placed in the 3 wt% sodium hydroxide solution at 45 ℃ to test the degradability, and the weight loss of samples at different degradation time were calculated, respectively. Finally, the morphology, FT-IR and tensile strength of samples was observed before and after degradation, and a possible mechanism of degradation was studied. The technique reported here demonstrated that it was possible to develop the degradable materials.