Influence of the chemical structure of rapeseed oil-based polyols on selected properties of polyurethane foams

In this work, we report on obtaining rigid polyurethane foams with biopolyols based on rapeseed oil. The biopolyols with different functionality were synthesized in a two-stage reaction of oil epoxidation and oxirane ring opening with 1-hexanol (P_1Hex) and 1,6-hexanediol (P_1.6Hex) and their properties were characterized (Table 2, Figs. 1-3). Next, they were used to replace petrochemical polyols in foams by up to 60% by mass (Table 1). The introduction of the biopolyols into the polyurethane systems affected their reactivity (Fig. 4). The replacement of the petrochemical polyols with the biopolyols caused changes in the cell structure (Tables 3, 4) and the physical and mechanical properties of the resultant materials (Table 5).