Highly stable and highly stretchable poly(vinyl chloride)-based plastics prepared by adding novel green oligomeric lactate plasticizers

Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is one of the most widely applied plastics in the world, with inherent mechanical brittleness and inflexibility in room temperature. With the growing concern for health and safety, especially in some fields (children's toys, food packaging, medical supplies) that require high-safety plastics, there is an urgent need to develop phthalate-free high-performance green PVC products. Herein, by blending novel green oligomeric lactate plasticizers 1, 4-cyclohexane dimethanol oligomeric lactate-levulinate (CDOL-L) and 1,4-cyclohexane dimethanol oligomeric lactate-levulinic acid ketal ester (CDOL-LKE), highly stretchable and highly stable PVC-based plastics were prepared successfully. CDOL-L and CDOL-LKE were synthesized by a green route of esterification and ketalization using biomass as the main raw material, and their structures were jointly confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, H-1 NMR and TOF-MS. Through performance testing, CDOL-L or CDOL-LKE plasticized PVC material were determined to have triple high stability (thermal, mechanical and migration stability) superior to DOP, DOTP and ATBC plasticized PVC. The PVC plasticized by CDOL-L exhibited break at elongation as high as 833.0% at 50 phr addition and 877.1% at 60 phr addition. Moreover, PVC plasticized by 50 phr CDOL-LKE exhibited relatively better thermal stability (T-i,T-CDOL-LKE = 271.4 degrees C) for the special ketal structure on the plasticizer. In conclusion, CDOL-L and CDOL-LKE showed potential to substitute traditional plasticizers and pointed a new direction for the preparation of high-performance PVC-based plastics.

Automated summary

Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is a widely used plastic with brittleness and inflexibility. This study successfully synthesized green plasticizers CDOL-L and CDOL-LKE, and developed highly stretchable and stable PVC-based plastics. The new plasticizers showed superior stability in thermal, mechanical, and migration properties compared to traditional ones, and demonstrated potential for substituting traditional plasticizers.