A reactive diluent for the preparation of a fully biobased unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) was developed and is presented here. The diluent, 4-vinylguaiacol acetyl ester (AC4VG), was obtained via a simple two-step synthesis: decarboxylation from ferulic acid (FA) and acetylation of the decarboxylated product, 4-vinylguaiacol (4VG). This diluent shows excellent miscibility with biobased unsaturated polyester prepolymer (UPP) that had been synthesized from succinic acid (SA), 1,3-dihydroxypropane (PD), and itaconic acid (IA). A mixed solution of these possessed a very low viscosity at 174 mPa·s at room temperature when 40 wt% AC4VG was added. Moreover, its vinyl group brought high reactivity for free radical copolymerization with the UPP, and the benzene ring structure enabled a high glass transition temperature (T_g) of the cured UPR. When the fully biobased UPR was reinforced by cotton fabric, a strong tensile strength at the break of approximately 65.8 MPa, a T_g of 135 °C, and a T_d5% of 276 °C were achieved. This work suggests that the fully biobased UPR reported here is a promising candidate for replacing petroleum-based ones, and the diluent AC4VG played an important role in the performance of this biobased UPR.

中文翻译：

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阿魏酸衍生的反应性稀释剂，用于制备全生物基不饱和聚酯树脂

开发了一种反应性稀释剂，用于制备完全生物基的不饱和聚酯树脂（UPR）。通过简单的两步合成即可得到稀释剂4-乙烯基愈创木酚乙酰基酯（AC4VG）：阿魏酸（FA）的脱羧作用以及脱羧产物4-乙烯基愈创木酚（4VG）的乙酰化作用。该稀释剂与由琥珀酸（SA），1,3-二羟基丙烷（PD）和衣康酸（IA）合成的生物基不饱和聚酯预聚物（UPP）表现出优异的混溶性。当添加40重量％的AC4VG时，这些混合物的混合溶液在室温下在174 mPa·s下具有非常低的粘度。此外，其乙烯基为与UPP的自由基共聚带来了高反应活性，并且苯环结构使玻璃化转变温度（T_g）固化的UPR。当全生物基UPR用棉织物增强时，断裂时的抗张强度很强，约为65.8 MPa，T _g为135°C，T _d5％为276°C。这项工作表明，此处报道的完全基于生物的UPR是替代基于石油的UPR的有前途的候选者，稀释剂AC4VG在该基于生物的UPR的性能中发挥了重要作用。