Versatility of plant oil as sustainable source for advanced functional materials design

A highly efficient combinatorial strategy was developed to prepared functional materials using cottonseed oil (CSO) to achieve high atomic economy. Four high value-added products namely Hg2+ adsorbent, C22-tricarboxylic ester, high purity oleic acid, and heavy oil viscosity reducer were prepared using CSO as starting materials. Polysulfide as Hg2+ adsorbent was prepared by inverse vulcanization reaction. The polysulfide showed great selectivity and reusability and the maximum adsorption capacity was 116.1 mg/g 22-Carbon tricarboxylic ester was synthesized by Diels-Alder reaction with CSO methyl linoleate. By reaction-assisted separation approach, oleic acid with a purity of 96.8% was obtained. CSO and 5% sodium soap of cottonseed oil solution were used as viscosity reducer for heavy oil, and the viscosity reduction rate was greater than 94.5%. It showed impressive versatility of plant oil for bio-based materials.