This project aims to develop sustainable, waterborne coatings based on bio-derived butenolide monomers as renewable alternatives to conventional acrylates. Building on CBBC expertise on butenolides as sustainable monomer alternative, the project investigates their solvent and waterborne copolymerization. A central aspect is increasing the overall biobased content of conventional polyacrylates to render the final materials more environmentally friendly. In collaboration with AkzoNobel, the resulting waterborne dispersions will be formulated into coatings and evaluated in applications.
Proposed approaches:
1. Alkoxy butenolides for waterborne emulsion polymerization. Here, the PD will work closely together with the PhD student and AkzoNobel partners to screen and optimize the acetal formation with a distinct set of alcohols for the production of the most promising monomers. The focus will be on efficient one-pot procedures for hydroxy butenolide conversion and purification, introduction of various alcohols, and screening of polymerization as function of monomer structure. Alternatively, also the more reactive acyloxy-butenolides monomers using fatty acids instead of alcohols will be examined for these specific waterborne applications.
2. Co-Polymerization and in particular, developing emulsion polymerization methodology for these monomers and various co-monomers. Establish optimized conditions, stability towards hydrolysis, polymer properties, etc.
3. Waterborne coating formulation from waterborne butanolide co-polymers based on emulsions/dispersions. The coating formulation will be tested in several applications, such as deco walls, and industrial wood coatings at AkzoNobel.
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