Green plasticizer for polymeric material.

PVC is the third largly used polymeric material after PE & PP. Even
though it is commodity polymer, It is thermally sensitive, difficult to
process and brittle material. In order to ease process ability & induce
flexibility various method like co-polymerization, blending, grafting,
increasing molecular weight, addition of fibre fillers & addition of
plasticizers have been investigated for PVC. Among all the above
mentioned methods addition of the plasticizers have been investigated
more beneficial for PVC. Plasticizers like Dioctyl thalate, Diethyl hexyl
thalate, Di-isoneonyl thalate, Dibutyl thalate, tritrolyl phosphate etc.
have been utilized for PVC plasticization. Though these plasticizers are
easily available & cost effective, they are found to be environmentally
toxic & health hazardous. Many countries have been banned or
restricted the import of the PVC product (European union and US) using
these plasticizers. So, there is need to produce green plasticizers using
non toxic renewable resources. Available plant source is topic of recent
research in academics & industries.
In present research work, we propose to synthesize green
plasticizer using Ricinolic acid (RA) which is cheap, non-toxic, nonrenewable raw material obtained from plant source. We aim to
synthesize ester amide of RA by reacting with dimethyl amine and
benzoic acid. Using two step non-solvent based condensation process
to synthesize ester amide of RA can be used as both primary &
secondary plasticizer for PVC. This plasticizer is expected to induce
plasticization effect on PVC on the basis of following points-

Oligomeric structure of plasticizer

Polarity induced by amide linkage
Polarity induced by ester linkage
Polarity induced by resonance structure of benzene

This would help in generating higher level of intermolecular forces of

attraction in plasticizer & PVC material. Plasticized PVC is utilized/
tested for various characterization studies like mechanical, thermal,
rheological, color, crystallinity , chemical resistance etc.
When used as secondary plasticizer, synthesized plasticizer
would be used as partial replacement for DOP upto 40phr, and above
characterization tests will be taken place.
Gaur gum is natural polymer obtained from ground endosperm of gaur
bean. India is largest producer, about 80% of world production. It is
extremely hydrophilic polymer & films prepared from it are too brittle.
It is usually added with 20% (w/w) ethylene glycol (EG) in order to make
it flexible and capable for film formation. However EG is non
renewable, costly & non-ecofriendly. Thus this research work is tried to
replace conventional plasticizer of gaur gum with cheap, renewable and
eco-friendly raw material ie. Castor oil (CA). concentration of CA varied
as 1, 3, 5 w% in gaur gum to prepare film, which are characterized for
mechanical, thermal, rheological, crystallinity, color, optical etc.
properties.
Thus greener of plasticization for commodity polymer like
polyvinyl chloride and bio polymer like gaur gum will be investigated.