In-situ thermal aging of biobased and conventional rigid polyurethane foams nanostructured with bacterial nanocellulose

Abstract

The incorporation of nanofillers and the use of biobased polyols might have a deleterious effect on the aging performance of rigid polyurethane foams (RPUFs) applied in the insulation and marine industries. To study this, RPUFs obtained from petroleum based (RPUF) and castor oil (RPUFRIC) polyols were nanostructured with bacterial nanocellulose (BNC) up to 0.3 wt%. Water immersion experiments revealed that the normalized water absorption (NWA) at the steady state was not affected by lower BNC contents (<0.2 wt%). Higher BNC contents caused a complex effect on post-cure and foaming, generating cell size expansion as well as shrinkage. In-situ DMA aging analysis revealed that the specific storage modulus (E'sp) under flexural conditions of the RPUFRIC and RPUF decreased by a maximum amount of 7.27% and 6.19%, respectively. The effect of BNC on the E'sp was negligible, expect for the case of the RPUF, where higher BNC concentrations (>0.2 wt%) caused a decrease of up to 13.69%. The previous results reinforce the hypothesis that the incorporation of BNC in both conventional and biobased polyurethane systems do not cause significant changes on the aging performance of the resulting foams, provided that low BNC concentrations are employed.