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Bio‐based epoxy resin is a promising candidate for petroleum‐based resins due to its abundant reserves and low‐cost products, which mainly use polyphenolic composites as precursors. Liquefied banana pseudo stem (LBPS), a highly active compound obtained by liquefaction with 7.5% of sulfuric acid as catalyst at 160°C, was used to synthesize bio‐based epoxy resin. FTIR and SEM demonstrated the synthetic process of LBPS‐based epoxy resin (LBPSER) from waste banana pseudo stem (BPS). Mechanical test, reagent resistance, dynamic mechanical analysis, and thermogravimetric analysis were utilized to evaluate the mechanical and chemical properties of LBPSER. With polyamide (PA) as hardener, LBPSER‐PA adhesive exhibited an optimum shear strength that is comparable with that of commercial diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA), corresponding to 11.86 vs 11.89 MPa. Interestingly, the shear strength of this adhesive curing at 40°C could get 9.52 MPa for wood materials. The adhesive also performed excellent resistance to organic agents, adverse acidic, and alkaline environments. Notably, as the content of LBPSER in adhesive increased, an increase of glass transition temperature could be verified from 42 to 100°C. The LBPSER‐PA adhesive presented good thermal and physicochemical performances, thereby suggesting the potential of utilizing liquefied product from BPS as alternative to toxic bisphenol A in synthesizing bio‐based epoxy resin. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47135. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A typical method of synthesizing epoxy composites is to incorporate diglycidyl ether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA) into a bio-based epoxy resin. In this strategy, pure liquefied biomass is typically used as feedstock and is blended with DGEBA. Liquefied banana pseudo stem (LBPS), a bio-based active mixture obtained by liquefaction with phenol as the solvent, was directly utilized without depuration or additional DGEBA to develop a composite blend epoxy resin (cb-LBPSER). The blending process based on an incorporation of phenol-based epoxy resin (PER) was investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, gel permeation chromatography, and thermogravimetric analysis. The cb-LBPSER presented a lower molecular weight and an improvement of 38.45% for shear strength than the pure LBPS-based epoxy resin (LBPSER). Also, the cured cb-LBPSER adhesive displayed a thermal stability comparable to that of PER. In addition, the curing behaviour, the activation energy, and the glass transition temperature were analyzed by diffrential scanning calorimetry and dynamic mechanical analysis. The blend bio-based epoxy composites exhibited an improved performance, confirming its potential as a suitable alternative to commercial PER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To expand the applications of fishing industrial wastes, the liquefaction technique was employed to convert chitin into liquids, which were first further used for the modification of polymer materials. Ball-mill treated chitin was effectively liquefied into polyols in polyethylene glycol 400/glycerin mixed solvent. FTIR, 1 H NMR and size exclusion chromatography analyses of liquefied chitin turned out that depolymerization and deacetylation reactions occurred during liquefaction process. The liquefied chitin/polyvinyl alcohol blend membranes with various mixing ratios were prepared and characterized by FTIR and SEM. In addition, transparency, tensile strength, elongation at break, water absorption, water retention and antibacterial properties were thoroughly discussed. The mechanical property and thermal stability were greatly enhanced under the optimized conditions of 25 wt% liquefied chitin incorporation to polyvinyl alcohol. Moreover, the blend membranes showed improvements in water absorption and water retention capacity. In particular, the antibacterial activity was significantly improved after incorporation of liquefied chitin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]