A Review on Biodegradable Polymeric Materials Derived from Vegetable Oils for Diverse Applications

Non-biodegradable polymers are causing severe damage to the environment. To counter this, need of biodegradable polymers is gaining a rapid growth in numbers as well in their applications and quantities used. In addition, due to the oil crises worldwide, focuses from synthesizing polymers from petroleum has shifted to the synthesis of polymers from renewable resources such as vegetable oils. The advantage of vegetable oils is they are easily available, have multiple functional groups attached like the double bonds, hydroxyl groups and other functional groups, which provides ease of reactions and modification like epoxidation etc. The use of vegetable oils in the polymer renders biodegradability to the polymer. Different researchers have used different vegetables oils like castor oil, linseed oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil and canola oils for synthesis of polymers and utilized them in diverse fields like biomedical, coatings, adhesives, IPNs and as structural materials. This review discusses the synthesis, characterization, degradation and applications of polymers obtained from natural oils such as castor oil, soybean oil, linseed oil and some other oils.