Effects of the addition of dimer acid alkyl esters on the properties of ethyl cellulose

• Dimer acid and its alkyl esters acted as effective green plasticizers.
• Dimer acid can be used as better plasticizer for ethyl cellulose than DOP.
• Alkyl chain length of dimer acid esters was an important factor for the plasticization effect.

In this study, we synthesized dimer acid (DA) esters, having short to long alkyl chains, (DA-Cn) by the Diels–Alder reaction and subsequent esterification reaction of fatty acids that were prepared by the hydrolysis of waste vegetable oil. It was found that the DA-Cn were thermally more stable than common petroleum-based plasticizer DOP. When the DOP, DA, or DA-Cn with short alkyl chains were added to ethyl cellulose (EC), the optical clarity and SEM images of the samples showed their good miscibility with those additives in a micro-scale. It was also found that the rubbery modulus of the EC decreased with increasing amount of additives; the type of the additives did not affect the rates of the decrease in the rubbery modulus. The main transition temperatures of the EC containing either DA or DA-C1 or DA-C4 decreased with increasing amounts of those additives and were comparable to that of the DOP-containing EC. The above findings suggested that the DA and its esters with short alkyl chains could act as effective plasticizer and, thus, could be used instead of the DOP. In addition, the results obtained from tensile testing and leaching experiments implied that the DA might be better plasticizer than the DA-C1 and DA-C4, at least in some cases, because of hydrogen-bonding with the EC.