Room-temperature self-curing ene reactions involving soybean oil

A mixture of soybean oil with diethyl azodicarboxylate exhibits a remarkable self-curing and thickening behavior at room temperature due to the occurrence of crosslinking ene reactions. The kinetics and the reaction mechanisms have been studied with the help of model compounds, (1)H and (13)C NMR, and size exclusion chromatography. The reactions are found to be most facile with linolenate, followed by linoleate, and least with oleate. The product from this reaction may be used as an environmentally friendly self-curing agent in appropriate applications.