Exploring the synergistic effect of carboxymethyl cellulose and chitosan in enhancing thermal stability of polyurethanes through statistical mixture design approach

The thermal stability of polyurethanes, known for its limitations, was addressed in this research by seeking improvement through the introduction of carbohydrate-based chain extenders. In this research paper, we systematically sought to improve the thermal resistance of polyurethanes by incorporating carboxymethyl cellulose and chitosan, representing a pioneering application of the mixture design approach in their preparation. In this synthesis, hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene and isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) were reacted to prepare -NCO terminated prepolymer, which was subsequently reacted with varying mole ratios of CMC and CSN to develop a series of five PU samples. The prepared PU samples were characterized using the Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopic technique. Thermal pyrolysis of PU samples was examined using thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). It was observed that, among all the samples, PUS-3 showed remarkable thermal stability over a wide temperature range. A comprehensive statistical analysis was conducted to substantiate the experimental findings. It was estimated that CMC and CSN significantly enhance the thermal stability of the samples when involved in an interaction fashion. The ANOVA Table for the mixture design demonstrates that over 90 % of the total variation in thermal stability is explained by the mixture model across a wide temperature range. Moreover, PSU-3 exhibited 4 % more thermal stability over a wide range of temperatures on average, as compared to contemporary samples.