Combination of chitin, lignin, and plant oil for high-performance sustainable elastomers with UV-shielding and photothermal properties

Developing sustainable elastomers derived from natural resources is crucial to mitigate environmental pollution yet challenging on account of their limited properties. In this work, chitin, lignin, and plant oil were selected as the feedstocks to design renewable bottlebrush copolymer elastomers via homogeneous reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. In such kind of bottlebrush copolymers, chitin serves as the rigid backbone, while the plant oil-derived monomer 4-vinylbenzyl oleate (VBO) and lignin-derived monomer syringaldehyde acrylate (SA) were chosen as the soft and hard segments for the rubbery brushes, respectively. These chitin- graft -poly(4-vinylbenzyl oleate- co -syringaldehyde acrylate) (Chitin- g -P(VBO- co -SA)) bottlebrush elastomers possess tunable mechanical properties and superior UV-shielding performance. To further improve their macroscopic behavior, carbon dots (CDs) were incorporated into the Chitin- g -P(VBO- co -SA) copolymers. The resulting Chitin- g -P(VBO- co -SA)/CD composites exhibit significantly enhanced tensile strength and excellent photothermal conversion ability owing to the introduction of CDs. This robust and convenient strategy can inspire the continuous development of strong and functional sustainable elastomers by combining different natural resources.