Bionanocomposite hybrid polyurethane (BHPU) foams that exploit the tribute of natural fibers and nanoclay in green PU foam can lead to the new imminent in engaging the nanoclay and natural fibers. PU filled empty fruit bunch (EFB), PU filled silane treated EFB (sEFB) and PU filled organo montmorillonite (oMMT) have been prepared as control, and the hybridization has carried out for 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 ratios between EFB/oMMT and sEFB/oMMT. The hybridization of these natural fibers and oMMT permit to retain the strength without compromise the stiffness of BHPU. The hybridization also improves the barrier and thermal properties of these BHPU. Microscopic studies shows that the hybridization of these natural fibers and nanoclay provide initial evidence of the possibilities on the insertion of nanoclay into the natural fibers, thus open the opportunities to exploit this behavior to another hybrid system.

Polycaprolactone (PCL) polyol was prepared by a ring opening polymerization of ?- caprolactone initiated by palm kernel oil (PKO) based polyol and 1,6-hexanediol to form a PCL/PKO based polyol. The properties of polyol were varied by their initiator:co-initiator weight ratio. The completion of polyol formation was characterized through Fourier Transformation Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Other parameters such as acid number and hydroxyl number of polyol were also studied to monitor the progress of reaction. FTIR results showed the significant changes particularly for the OH and C=O stretching peaks. � (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

Reactive nanoclay reinforced hyperbranched polyurethane (HPU) nanocomposites have been synthesized with the introduction of palm oil polyol as part of the precursor. The HPU were prepared in a two-step process using polycaprolactonediol, 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate and 1,4-butanediol as chain extender. Nanoclay was added with the purpose of improving the properties of the pristine polyurethane. The introduction of palm oil polyol is believed to enhance the mixing process between polymer matrix and filler. Thermal, mechanical and shape memory properties of produced HPU were investigated. The results showed that the crystallinity of HPU nanocomposites decreased with introduction of clay particles and that the mechanical and shape memory properties were enhanced with the addition of small amount of reactive nanoclay (up to 3 wt%). � (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

In this study, the effect of adding cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) on the conductivity of biopolymer electrolyte (BPE) based on chitosan-methylcellulose-BMIMTFSI has been studied. The samples were prepared via solution casting technique. The film was characterized by impedance spectroscopy HIOKI 3531- 01 LCR Hi-Tester to measure its ionic conductivity at room temperatures over a wide range of frequency between 50Hz-5MHz. Sample with 15 wt% of CNC shows the highest conductivity of 4.82 x 10-6 Scm-1 at room temperature. Dielectric and modulus studies were carried out to further understands the conductivity behavior of the samples. The increase in conductivity is mainly due to the increase in number of charge carriers.

The effect of palm oil polyol crosslinking on the mechanical and shape memory properties of polyurethane (PU) polymer was investigated and compared with linear PU. The PU was composed of polycaprolactonediol (PCL), palm oil polyol, 4,4-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) and 1,4-butanediol (BD). Palm oil polyol was introduced due to its large number of functional groups, hyperbranched structure and easy availability. The shape fixity decreased with addition of palm oil polyol while shape recovery increased and showed an optimum value with the addition of palm oil polyol. The mechanical properties improved with the addition of palm oil polyol in regards with linear PU. Copyright � (2012) Asian-Australasian Association for Composite Materials (AACM).

Shape memory polymers (SMP) are smart materials with the ability of changing shape when subjected to external stimuli. In this work, the shape memory polyurethane (SMPU) has been synthesized via two step bulk polymerization method by replacing up to 40% molar ratio of petroleum-based polyol using palm oil-based polyols (POP). This effort was done with the purpose of reducing the usage of petroleum-based polyol due to environmental awareness. The main objective is to investigate the effects of different polyol/isocyanate/1,4-butanediol molar ratio in relation to soft-hard segment content towards the mechanical and shape memory properties of the resulting SMPU. The mechanical properties were improved with POP addition and optimum performance of tensile properties were obtained within 35 to 40% of hard segment content. Tensile strength increased with increasing POP content but after 40% of hard segment content, the properties decreased. On the other hand, the modulus significantly reduced with an increase of hard segment content. Crystallinity also decreased with decreasing of polycaprolactone diol (PCL) content as more POP content was added. Shape memory properties of PU 165 is better than PU 154 in terms of the ability to return to its original shape since all of PU 165 samples showed 100% recovery. In general, the addition of palm oil-based polyol showed improvement in mechanical and shape memory properties as compared to pristine SMPU. � 2017 Author(s).

Surface treatment of aluminium alloy plays a significant role in improving the strength of the adhesive bond. In this study, an aluminium alloy 2024-T3 was treated by two different methods of surface treatments i.e. by alkaline etching and warm water treatment followed by silanization method in order to enhance the adhesive bonding. Three different formulations of polyurethane adhesive by varying the NCO:OH ratios which were prepared from polyol polycaprolactone (PCL) based on palm kernel oil polyesteramide (PPKO) with a blend of aromatic and cycloaliphatic diisocyanate. Surface morphology, surface chemical analysis, wettability and surface roughness of the treated samples were characterised using field emission scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (FESEM/EDX), X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), contact angle goniometry and surface profilometry, respectively. The influences of surface treatment techniques and conditions on durability of the joint strength and interfacial properties were explored by performing the single lap shear test and wedge test. The effects of NCO:OH ratios on PU adhesive strength were also investigated. Durability of PU adhesive bonding is found to display an interesting dependence on the surface treatments. � 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Biobased shape memory polyurethane filled with carbon nanotubes (CNT) were prepared using two step polymerization process. The bio based shape memory polyurethane (SMPU) were composed of polycaprolactonediol, polyol based on palm oil, 4, 4�-diphenylmethane diisocyanate and 1, 4-butanediol. In this paper, CNTs has been used as fillers to introduce the electrical conductivity in the SMPU. The bio-based shape memory polyurethane shows electrical conductivity with addition of 7 wt% CNT. � 2017 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

In order to enhance the adhesive bonding, two different methods of surface treatments have been carried out on aluminum alloy 2024-T3 substrate i.e. alkaline etching and silane treatment. The topology and surface chemical analyses of treated alloy were investigated by AFM and XPS, respectively. The effect of surface treatments on the wettability and adhesive bonding strength were also studied. Three different formulations of polyurethane adhesive by varying the NCO: OH ratio that were prepared from the reaction of green polycaprolactone (PCL) polyol and diisocyanate. Silane treatment showed better wettability and adhesive bonding strength compared to alkaline etching surface treatment. � 2014 Faculty of Mechanical Engineering.

Aluminum alloy 2024-T3 was treated by two different methods of surface treatments i.e. by alkaline etching and warm water treatment followed by silanization method in order to enhance the adhesive bonding. The effects of both the substrate surface condition and the adhesive properties on single-lap shear resistance were analysed. Three different formulation of polyurethane adhesive by varying the NCO:OH ratio which were prepared from polyol based on polycaprolactone (PCL)/palm kernel oil (PKO) with an aromatic and cycloaliphatic diisocyanate. Moreover, wettability tests were performed in order to evaluate the effect of all parameters mentioned above on the substrate/adhesive interaction. Surface treatment with warm water and ?- GPS gives better wettability and adhesive bonding compared to alkaline etching surface treatment. � (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

Shape memory polyurethanes (SMPU) are one of the advanced materials that have potential applications in the field of biomedical particularly vascular stent. This paper studies the effect of incorporating palm oil polyol (POP) up to 40% molar ratio in place of petroleum-based polyol in the preparation of SMPU due to environmental concern. Polycaprolactone diol was utilized as the soft segment while 4,4?-diphenylmethane diisocyanate and 1,4-butanediol as the hard segments. The SMPU was prepared using two-step prepolymer method, and the fabricated samples were characterized to study the effect of POP on the thermal properties, tensile, and shape memory behavior of polyurethane. The results obtained have shown that SMPU with incorporation of POP showed good shape fixity (100%) and elongation at break (245%) up to 20% molar ratio of POP. The presence of dangling chains of fatty acid in POP was believed to enhance the flexibility of SMPU molecular chains by acting as a plasticizer. On the other hand, the shape recovery of SMPU remains high even at 40% molar ratio of POP, and the thermal stability of SMPU increased with the addition of POP. It is proposed that the synthesized POP-based SMPU is a suitable candidate for cardiovascular stent as they possessed desired thermal, mechanical, and shape memory properties. � 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Polyurethane (PU) adhesives were prepared from three different polyols based on polycaprolactone (PCL)/palm kernel oil (PKO) with an aromatic and cycloaliphatic diisocyanate. The adhesives were characterized through Fourier Transformer Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in order to ensure the formation of urethane and the completeness of polymer reaction. The effects of NCO/OH ratios and types of diisocyanate on PU adhesive strength were investigated. The adhesive strength of metal to metal bonding was determined by single lap shear joint testing. The correlation between crosslinking of PU network and adhesive strength was also studied by performing swelling tests. � (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

Montmorillonite K10 (MMT K10), the major clay mineral commercially available can be treated to improve its properties and thus can be utilized for a broad range of organic reaction including esterification of fatty acids for biodiesel production. However, the use of unmodified MMT K10 in esterification of fatty acids showed that the acid conversion was less than 60 %. The aim of this study is to utilize available material i.e. MMT K10 modified with Cu2+, Al3+ and Fe3+ at various concentrations as catalyst for the esterification of acetic acid and stearic acid. The x-ray diffraction and elemental analysis of the materials were successfully characterized. After characterization, the materials were evaluated for the esterification of acetic acid and stearic acid with methanol. Prepared catalysts were able to give the highest acid conversion of up to 75% relative to the unmodified MMT K10 revealing the potential of M-MMT K10 as catalyst for esterification in biodiesel production. � Copyright International Association of Engineers.

This paper described the effect of empty fruit bunch (EFB) loading in the medium density rigid foam, which was prepared from the palm kernel oil based polyol. The grounded 300m EFB fiber was used as filler and its composition were varied from 3, 6, 9 and 12 weight percent. EFB filled PU shown good dimensional stability at 70°C and -15°C due expending and shrinking percentage are less than 0.8% and 0.4% respectively. The mechanical properties were increased linearly with the EFB loading until it reached an optimum percentage of the EFB. SEM images shows the usage of big size cylindrical particle suggested that the fiber pull out will responsible for the synergistic effect of flexibility and strength of the biofoam produced.

A series of nanoclay reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane with shape memory effect have been successfully synthesized via two-step polymerization process. The polyurethanes are composed of polycaprolactonediol, palm oil polyol, 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate and 1,4-butanediol. Nanoclay was added in order to improve the overall properties of the pristine polyurethane. Besides, the addition of palm oil polyol is believed to enhance the crosslinking process and further improve the properties. X-ray diffraction result showed that there is a decrease in crystallinity of polyurethane nanocomposites as clay is added. Good shape memory and mechanical properties of resulting polyurethane nanocomposites were obtained in this work. � (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

Thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) nanocomposites were prepared using polycaprolactonediol as the soft segment, 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate as the hard segment, 1,4-butanediol and palm oil polyol. Nanoclay with certain weight percent (wt%) was reinforced as filler to improve both mechanical and shape memory behavior of the nanocomposites. Palm oil polyol was introduced in order to provide hyperbranched structure for better dispersion of filler in the matrix as well as aiding the crosslinking process. The experimental results showed that the mechanical and shape memory behavior of clay reinforced polyurethane nanocomposites were influenced by clay weight percent in the polymer matrix. TPU with 3 wt% clay showed optimum values of mechanical properties while the shape memory behavior decreases with increasing clay content. � (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

This research focused on the fabrication of castor-based polyurethane composite (CPUC) filled with waste carbon tyres (WCT) with particle size of 200 µm that acts as reinforcing filler. WCT was first sieved using a sieving machine to obtain uniform particle size. WCT loading was varied at 0wt%, 2wt%, 4wt% and 6wt%. The effect of WCT loading in CPUC was evaluated based on their foam reaction time, apparent density, rheology, compression strength, morphology and thermal properties. The foam reaction time of CPUC achieved was in the range of industrial PU grout’s properties. The rheology index and compression strength of CPUC decreased with increasing WCT loading. CPUC with 2wt% of WCT loading achieved the optimum compression strength where it increased from 2.58 MPa to 3.39 MPa with the improvement of 31.40% compared to neat PU. FESEM micrograph showed that CPUC consists of closed foam cell indicating the rigidity of the CPUC. The addition of 2wt% of WCT resulted in achieving the optimum thermal stability of CPUC where CPUC2 had the highest char residue content. The high residue content indicated that CPUC2 had the lowest decomposition of elements as WCT acted as heat barrier in CPUC matrix thus increasing the thermal stability of CPUC2. © 2020 Penerbit UTM Press. All rights reserved.

Polyurethane has been widely used in various coating industries due to its good weathering resistance, promising appearance, excellent elasticity and good mechanical properties. The present work reports the development of polycaprolactone urethane coatings based on waste palm cooking oil (WPCO). WPCO was recycled to synthesis polycaprolactone (PCL) polyol using two-steps methods; transesterification and ring opening polymerization with various ratios of ?-CL to WPCO based polyesteramide. The WPCO based PCL polyols were reacted with isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) to produce polycaprolactone urethane coatings. FTIR analyses were employed to confirm the formation of polyols and the scratch resistance properties of coatings were characterized by scratch hardness testing. The results revealed that the scratch resistance of polycaprolactone urethane coatings increased by increasing the ?-CL composition in the formulation. � 2019 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of different types and molecular weight (MW) of polyol on the shape memory properties of palm kernel oil-based shape memory polyurethane (SMPU) prepared by two step bulk polymerization procedure. Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and poly(?-caprolactone) (PCL) with MW 2000 and MW 4000 were used as the main material for soft segment. The addition of palm kernel oil polyol (PKO-p) in the SMPU system is due to the concern of the renewable resources. Shape fixity and shape recovery properties were investigated using bending test to evaluate the shape memory effect. The results indicate that the shape fixity of SMPU depends primarily on the types of polyol whereas MW had a slight effect towards the shape fixity. SMPU synthesized from PEG with MW 2000 performed a good shape fixity, about 96% compared to that of PCL with MW 2000, about 29%. In the case of PCL - based SMPU, the increase of shape fixity is proportional to the increase of MW. All samples, except the one based on PEG4000, exhibited excellent shape recovery (100%). � 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of organically modified nanoclay on thermal and mechanical properties of palm oil polyol (POP) based polyurethane (PU) were investigated. Thermoplastic PU elastomer was synthesized utilizing polycaprolactonediol (PCL), POP, 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) and 1,4-butanediol (BD) as chain extender via two-step prepolymer process in bulk. The amount of clay added is between 1 to 5 wt%. The produced nanocomposites were subjected to thermal and mechanical characterization which includes thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and tensile test. The results obtained showed improved thermal stability and tensile properties of PU nanocomposites upon addition of clay content. � 2016 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.