The growing awareness of society towards major environmental challenges is driving the polymer industry to develop greener and more sustainable products. One approach to achieving this goal is by replacing petroleum-based building blocks by bio-based alternatives. Lignin is a promising bio-aromatic resource that could provide interesting properties when integrated into coatings, composites, and prepolymer components. Herein, we report a new class of photo-curable resins derived from depolymerized lignin oil, an emerging class of bio-oil containing low molecular weight bioaromatic compounds such as lignin monomers, dimers and small oligomers. To do so, we developed a two-steps green synthetic pathway involving ethoxylation of phenolic hydroxyls with ethylene carbonate, followed by trans-esterification of aliphatic hydroxyls with methyl methacrylate. This innovative approach was first applied to monomeric (hydroxy)alkylphenol model compounds and then directly on pinewood-derived lignin oil, circumventing the use of traditional (and often toxic) acrylation reagents. Highly functionalized methacrylated bioaromatic precursors were obtained directly as viscous liquids (without adding reactive diluents), thus mimicking the acrylic “syrups” commonly used in industry. These reactive biosyrups were then UV-cured into functional materials, such as free-standing films and (nanoscale) coatings, measurements. Moreover, their superior thermo-mechanical such as thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and tensile properties were thoroughly investigated, revealing important insights in their tunable structure-property relationships.
WWSC is a joint research center between KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology and Linköping University. The base is a donation from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. The Swedish industry is supporting WWSC via the platform Treesearch.
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Email: conference2025@wwsc.se