Week 4

During lab this week, Ph.D. Candidate, Emre Kinaci, gave a presentation on his previous work with cashew nut shell oil. In this presentation, he discussed his testing and results along with what our group needed to know to move forward. The on hand materials were discussed, and they include:

•                NC547- 3 epoxy functional groups.
•                DGEBA - A polymer resin.
•                NC514 -  A 2 epoxy functional groups.
•                Lite 2513- A 1 epoxy functional group.
•                Lauric Acid- A 12-Carbon saturated fatty acid chain.
•                Styrene- A common and effective petrochemical  that decreases viscosity and increases modoulous properties.
•                Methacrylated Fatty Acid- An effective fatty acid chain that proved effective in polymer testing.

In Kinaci's previous work, a ratio of 70/30 from cashew nut oil to styrene had the best results for the amount of styrene present. The industrial limit is 25% styrene in any given polymer, because it is carcinogenic. This result was used  build a template for testing our resin. It was decided that the 30% styrene would be split into various percentages of styrene and MFA to increase the renewability of the resin. After testing, the resin with the best properties and renewability will be used to test Cellulose and Glass fibers in a composite structure. A meeting was arranged for the experiment to be conducted in Week 5.