Easily synthesized soybean oil bio-based material for wastewater treatment

The need for alternative petroleum-based polymers sheds light on developing new biomaterials, even though their synthesis frequently has an enormous environmental impact. Hence, a new synthetic approach to prepare simple soybean oil (SO) derived materials is here proposed to decrease the polymerization impact. Fresh and expired SO are used as starting materials, and a solid gummy material is obtained using BF3 as catalyst in just 1 h with microwave irradiation. A combined approach of 1H NMR, GC–MS, and ATR-FTIR analyses enabled an understanding of the principal role of the fatty acids' unsaturation on the cross-linking reaction. The material was characterized through SEM, DSC, nanotomography and XRD analyses, revealing a compact morphology with some cavities. The material was, then, applied as adsorbent for some wastewater pollutants. Adsorption efficiencies of the bio-based material for different organic solvents or dye water solution were analysed, obtaining good efficiencies. Moreover, the material can be recycled after pollutant adsorption and used several times. Finally, it can be chemically degraded and is biocompatible, expanding the application of this bio-based material also to other fields.