The preparation of sorbitol and its application in polyurethane: a review

With environmental and resource issues become increasingly prominent, as well as the requirements of the bioeconomy, the synthesis of polyurethane tends to follow the green chemistry and uses sustainable biological resources as raw materials. As a kind of biomass material, sorbitol has great potential for the bio-based polyurethane industry because of the high performance that sorbitol brings to polyurethane. What,s more, the various extraction technologies for sorbitol have matured. This paper reviews the extraction methods of sorbitol and analyzes the effects of sorbitol as polyols, crosslinkers and chain extenders used in polyurethane. Sorbitol based non-isocyanate polyurethane was also introduced.