Vegetable oil-based polymers: Properties, processing and applications

The growing need to find a sustainable, environmentally friendly replacement for petroleum-based materials is fueling the development of bio-based polymers from renewable resources. Among the most promising of these are vegetable oil-based polymeric materials.The author presents a textbook on conventional vegetable-oil polymers that also discusses an advanced class of dendritic polymers for undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of materials science and engineering, medical science and technology, environmental science and engineering, biochemical engineering and biotechnology. The book covers the basic concept, preparation, characterization, properties, processing and applications of vegetable-oil based conventional polymers, highly branched hyperbranched polymers, polymer composites and nanocomposites. Chapters discuss the fundamentals of polymers, offer a basic understanding of biodegradable polymers and cover vegetable oils and their derivatives, including polymers and their technologies. At the conclusion of each chapter there are review questions.