Synthesis of Polyurethanes based on 17 Hydroxy Oleic Acid obtained from Sophorolipids

Due to the worldwide shortage of petrochemical based resources, the usage of renewable bio-based raw materials for established and novel products becomes increasingly important.[1] Such bio-based resources are already used for the fabrication of a variety of products, e. g. paper, lubricants, detergents or cosmetics. In the future they are expected to emerge in many more applications in industry and household.[1] A very promising approach relies on the use of glycolipids as a source of hydroxy-oleic acid.[2] Microbial glycolipids are produced for instance via fermentation from natural resources such as plant oils and sugar.[3] After fermentation complex product mixtures are obtained with the composition depending on the microorganism, substrate and fermentation time.[3] The successful use of microbial glycolipids and hydroxy-oleic acid (HOA) derived therefrom as bio-based intermediates requires reliable analytical methods as well as robust manufacturing processes for the synthesis and cleavage of bio-based molecules. In order to obtain hydroxy-oleic acids as bio-based intermediates, the acidic cleavage of microbial derived sophorolipid was investigated. In addition the implementation of HOA in polyurethane (PU) systems was explored.