Renewable alternating aliphatic-aromatic poly(ester-urethane)s prepared from ferulic acid and bio-based diols

• Chemo-enzymatic synthesis of renewable ferulic acid-based monomers.
• Metal-catalyst free copolymerizations with diisocyanates were achieved.
• Poly(ester-urethane)s were obtained with molecular weight up to 25.5 kDa.
• Excellent thermal stabilities (184–228 °C) and tunable Tg (34–127 °C) were observed.

A new class of eight partially renewable alternating aliphatic-aromatic poly(ester-urethane)s (PEUs) is obtained through the polyaddition of four renewable bisphenols derived from ferulic acid and bio-based diols on two commercially available diisocyanates. The structures and molecular weights of these PEUs are characterized by 1H and 13sC NMR, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and size exclusion chromatography (SEC). The PEUS are further studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). All these thermoplastic PEUs are transparent and rigid at room temperature, with Mn ranging from 4 to 10 kDa, and relatively narrow dispersities (1.7–3.5), prove to be stable up to more than 180 °C (Td 5%), with Tg varying from 28 to 128 °C depending on their structure.

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