Morphological and Thermal Characterization of Linseed-Oil Based Polymers from Cationic and Thermal Polymerization

Linseed oil-based polymers have been synthesized via cationic and thermal polymerization and characterized through various techniques, such as SEM, DMA, DSC and TGA. The morphology of the polymer samples after extraction reveals the smooth structure of the polymer matrix. With an increase in oil content, the morphology is observed to be more loosely bound. With an increase in linseed oil content in the samples, the room temperature storage modulus (E') varies from 10.4 x 10(7) to 1.8 x 10(7) Pa. The glass transition temperatures measured through DMA of the cationic samples ranges from 70 to -6 A degrees C and the crosslink densities range from 18.4 x 10(3) to 3.4 x 10(3) mol/m(3). The glass transition temperatures of the thermal samples range from 106 to -4 A degrees C and the crosslink densities range from 7.7 x 10(3) to 2.4 x 10(3) mol/m(3). The TGA results show three stages of degradation of the polymer samples and it is also revealed that these polymers are stable up to 200 A degrees C, showing negligible decomposition.