Toward replacement of styrene by bio-based methacrylates in unsaturated polyester resins

•Various potentially biobased methacrylates are evaluated as styrene replacement in UPRs.•Volatility, viscosity, miscibility are first evaluated.•Thermomechanical and mechanical properties are presented and discussed as a function of network structure.

Several potentially bio-based methacrylate derivatives, namely (with mol.% of bio-based carbon), butanediol dimethacrylate (BDDMA) (33%), isobornyl methacrylate (IBOMA) (71%), lauryl methacrylate (LMA) (75%) have been evaluated as alternatives to styrene as reactive diluent of unsaturated polyester (UPR). First the compatibility of these compounds with SMC/BMC processes has been studied in terms of volatility, miscibility with UPR and viscosity. Based on these preliminary experiments, butanediol dimethacrylate (BDDMA) was selected as sole reactive diluent. The thermo-mechanical and mechanical properties of the resulting network were found to be very different from the ones of a UPR/MMA network prepared as a reference. Consequently, mixtures constituted of BDDMA and one monomethacrylate derivative (MMA, IBOMA and LMA) were then used as reactive diluents to yield networks owning a large range of mechanical behaviours.

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