Aida Abbasi - Department of Polymer Engineering and Color Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology Tehran, Iran.
Gity Mir Mohamad Sadeghi - Department of Polymer Engineering and Color Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology Tehran, Iran.
Ismaeil Ghasemi - Plastic Department, Iran Polymer and Petrochemical Institute, Tehran, I.R . Iran

In the presented study, vegetable oil-based polyurethanes were synthesized using a mixed polyols component with poly (ε-caprolactone) diol (PCL3000)/ Castor oil by reacting with 1,6-diisocyanatohexane. The effect of Castor oil molar ratios on the structure, physical-chemical properties, mechanical and shape memory behavior were investigated by means of (FT-IR), (DMTA), tensile testing and shape-memory testing, respectively. FTIR confirmed the chemical structure of the synthesized polyurethanes. DMTA studies showed the effect of two synergistic parameters including dangling chains and cross link networks of Castor oil on the storage modules, while the mechanical properties of Castor oil-based polyurethane up to 50% molar ratios of oil resulted in 54% increment in tensile strength compared to the pure polyurethane. An excellent shape recovery up to 96% was observed for the Castor oil-based polyurethanes. Thus, petroleum polyols could be successfully replaced by vegetable oil and mechanical properties as well as shape memory properties were improved.

Polyurethane- Vegetable oil- Smart polymers- Shape memory properties- Castor oil