Fish Oil Polymeric Systems: Synthesis, Structure, Properties and Their Relationships

Fengkui Li, David Marks, Richard Larock, and Joshua Otaigbe

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Iowa State University,

Ames, IA, USA

Annual Technical Conference - Society of Plastics Engineers

Abstract

Fish oil or conjugated fish oil was copolymd. with divinylbenzene and norbornadiene or dicyclopentadiene using BF3 × OEt2 as an initiator in an effort to develop useful biodegradable polymers with rationally designed structures from natural renewable resources. Dynamic mech. anal., DSC, TGA and NMR spectroscopy have been used to characterize the resulting fish oil polymers. The results show that viable fish oil products ranging from rubbers to hard plastics may be synthesized by changing the type and amt. of the comonomers used. The fish oil products are thermosetting polymers having highly crosslinked structures, glass transition temps. ranging from 50 to 130 ° , room temp. modulus of about 109 Pa, and excellent thermal stability, making the products useful for applications where current biodegradable plastics are not usable.