Realization of customizable performance castor oil-based waterborne polyurethane antiseptic coatings via arbutin

The utilization of green and sustainable bio-based resources gets more important owing to the increasing shortage of petrochemical resources. Arbutin (AT) was considered to belong to a class of renewable polyhydroxy compounds due to its unique molecular structure. Hence, a molecular structure design strategy was employed to incorporate AT and castor oil into the backbone of anionic waterborne polyurethan (WPU). The effect of the AT content on the characteristics of WPU dispersion and casting film was thoroughly investigated. The result showed that the WPU films had excellent transparency, mechanical (the tensile strength was 28.4 MPa, the toughness was 34.3 MJ/m3), and thermodynamic properties, surpassing most current vegetable oil-based WPU systems. Notably, the WPU-AT20 film could pull target 18722 times its own weight, which could be ascribed to the cooperative effects of abundant rigid rings, H-bonds, and a higher physical crosslink density in systems. The Tg values of the WPU films were adjusted to range from 13.47 °C to 63.40 °C. The maximum value of Tg was, in particular, outstanding at present reported systems. Intriguingly, the WPU films still exhibited prominent anti-corrosion performance towards Q235# iron after severe weather conditions of outdoor storage for 4 months. The objective of this research was to offer simple and feasible strategies for preparing eco-friendly WPU coatings with excellent anti-corrosion performance.