Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Commentary | OPEN ACCESS

Enhancing the quality of alkyd resins using methyl esters of rubber seed oil

Esther U Ikhuoria¹ , Aireguamen I Aigbodion², Felix E Okieimen¹

¹ndustrial Agriculture Products Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria.; ²End-use Division, Rubber Research Institute of Nigeria, Benin City, Nigeria.

For correspondence:- Esther Ikhuoria Email: esyikhuoria@yahoo.com

Published: 15 June 2004

Citation: Ikhuoria EU, Aigbodion AI, Okieimen FE. Enhancing the quality of alkyd resins using methyl esters of rubber seed oil. Trop J Pharm Res 2004; 3(1):311-317 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v3i1.8

© 2004 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: Alkyd resins constitute a very high proportion of conventional binders used in surface coatings. In order to enhance the quality of these alkyd resins methyl esters of rubber seed oil (MERSO) were used in the preparation of the resins.
Methods: MERSO were obtained by in-situ alcoholysis of rubber seed. Alkyd resins having oil lengths of 45, 50 and 55% were prepared with MERSO, phthalic anhydride and glycerol using alcoholysis method. Lead (II) oxide and xylene were used as catalyst and refluxing solvent, respectively. The physico-chemical racteristics of the MERSO and the resins obtained were compared with the corresponding value of rubber seed oil (RSO) and its alkyd resins. Chemical resistance of the alkyd resins was also determined.
Results: The acid value of the finished alkyd resins depends on the rate and extent of esterification. Iodine value of the alkyd shows that the level of unsaturation depends on the oil length of the resins. The free fatty acid (FFA) value (1.99%) of the MERSO was much lower than that of the RSO (9.54%). This supports the choice of methyl ester as a preferred alternative to the use of the raw RSO in alkyd resin preparation. All the alkyd samples were fairly resistant to brine, acid and water but poorly resistant to alkali. However, the MERSO alkyds were observed to have a better resistance than the RSO alkyd resins. The scratch/gouge pencil hardness shows that the hardness of the alkyd films decreases with the oil length.

Keywords: Alkyd resins, rubber seed oil, methyl ester.