Novel polyurethanes from xylan and TDI: Preparation and characterization

Xylan is a hemicellulose, which is found abundantly in nature. In this work, a novel polyurethane was developed involving xylan and tolylene-2,4-diisocyanate (TDI). Polymer synthesis was achieved through conventional heat or microwave-assisted reaction in dimethyl sulfoxide. Because xylan has multiple OH groups on each polymer chain, the TDI/xylan molar ratio had to be adjusted to produce a soluble polymeric product. The reaction products were characterized by C-13 NMR, FTIR, thermogravimetric analysis, and differential scanning calorimetry. The xylan polyurethane was shown to exhibit improved thermal stability over xylan.