Green plasticizers derived from soybean oil for poly(vinyl chloride) as a renewable resource material

Vegetable oil based plasticizers have potential use as nontoxic and sustainable plasticizer and as replacements for commonly used phthalate plasticizers. In this study, novel soybean oil based polyol esters (derived from glycerin or pentaerythritol, of which two were acetylated and two were additionally epoxidized) were synthesized and characterized with GPC, FT-IR and 1H NMR. Properties of poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) plasticized with different soybean oil based polyol ester as main plasticizer were evaluated and compared to that of traditional plasticizers dioctyl phthalate (DOP) and epoxidized soybean oil (ESO). It has been proved that thermal stability of PVC blends could be improved by soybean oil based polyol ester plasticizers. Plasticizing effect of pentaerythritol derived soybean oil polyesters on PVC is better than that of DOP, ESO, and glycerin derived soybean oil polyesters. Tests of migration stability showed that with the increasing of the molecular weight, branching degree of molecular and ester bands of soybean oil based polyol ester, the migration stability was enhanced. This study may lead to the development of new type of PVC materials using soybean oil based polyol ester as main plasticizer.