The Effects of Epoxidized Acrylated Castor Oil (EACO) on Soft Poly (vinyl chloride) Films as a Main Plasticizer

In this work, an environmentally friendly type plasticizer was introduced. The synthesis consisted of two steps. In the first step, castor oil (CO) was acrylated and then the acrylated castor oil (ACO) was epoxidized with the presence of formic acid and hydrogen peroxide in the second step. The epoxidized acrylated castor oil (EACO) was characterized by FTIR and ¹H-NMR techniques. The EACO was used as a main plasticizer to obtain plasticized PVC materials and compared with DOP. The results showed that EACO improved polyvinyl-chloride (PVC) plasticization performance and reduced Tg from 81.06°C to 1.40°C. Plasticized PVC materials with EACO showed similar mechanical properties and better thermal stability than DOP. EACO had better volatility stabilities, migration and solvent extraction in PVC than DOP. EACO can be used to replace DOP to prepare soft films.