Synthesis and characterization of a greener poly(vinyl acetate) adhesive

Abstract: To produce a greener adhesive is always an issue of concern to the commercial market and global environment. The environmental request for producing greener and bio-based adhesives leads to an increased awareness of replacing fossil-based components in adhesives with bio-based alternatives. Consequently, many researchers try to graft polymers from natural materials and some achievements have been made. In this work, an improved procedure to graft vinyl acetate (VAc) from chitosan (CS) is proposed and significant improvements were made regarding the increased Tg and water resistance. The achieved monomer conversion of VAc was ~97 %, and it was confirmed that chitosan-graft-poly(vinyl acetate) (CS-g-PVAc) could be used as a wood adhesive. The adhesive exhibited competitive properties to commercial PVAc wood adhesive. In the produced CS-g-PVAc, ~17 % of the fossil-based content of VAc could be replaced with bio-based chitosan, indicating an increased sustainability. At the same time there is no residual monomer during pressing, which avoid to pollute environment and hurt human. Compared to commercial PVAc, which has Tg at ~28 ℃, the Tg of CS-g-PVAc is ~42 ℃ At the same time, the water resistance of PVAc adhesive was successfully increased.