RETRACTED ARTICLE: Fully biobased epoxy from isosorbide diglycidyl ether cured by biobased curing agents with enhanced properties

In this study, isosorbide diglycidyl ether (isosorbide epoxy) was cured by a variety of biobased curing agent of terpene maleic anhydride (TMA) and maleopimaric acid (MPA) to prepare fully biobased epoxy resins. The structures of isosorbide epoxy and biobased curing agents were synthesized and characterized by NMR. The non-isothermal curing kinetics of fully biobased epoxies were studied using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The bis-phenol A type epoxy and petroleum based curing agent methyl Nadic anhydride (MNA) bearing similar caged structure was also studied for comparison. The mechanical properties of the biobased epoxy resins were evaluated using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and the thermal stability was characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), respectively. The fully biobased epoxies have comparable or even better mechanical properties and thermal stability than the biophenol A type epoxies cured by petroleum based curing agents, showing that the biobased isosorbide epoxies have great potential application as substitute for those petroleum based epoxies.