The chemical effect of furfuryl amide on the enhanced performance of the diphenolic acid derived bio-polybenzoxazine resin

As a renewable chemical, diphenolic acid (DPA) has attracted immense interest in bio-based polymer science. However, its application for polybenzoxazines is limited due to decarboxylation, that is, the release of CO₂ during the curing reaction of benzoxazine. In this study, the amidation strategy of converting DPA to diphenolic amides (DPAM) was demonstrated to solve this problem while simultaneously improving the thermal properties of polybenzoxazine. DPA was amidated by separately using four amines (hexamine, cyclohexylamine, furfurylamine, and aniline), then reacted with furfurylamine and paraformaldehyde to synthesize their benzoxazine monomers. By using TGA and DMA, all amide-containing polybenzoxazines were found to exhibit excellent thermal stabilities. Among all of the benzoxazine resins, poly(DFA-fa), which was obtained from amidation with furfurylamine, exhibited the highest glass transition temperature (T_g) of 310°C and a decomposition temperature (T_d10) of 406°C. Furthermore, a possible post-curing reaction mechanism was proposed to explain the outstanding thermal performance of poly(DFA-fa) resin. This study proposes an innovative strategy to solve the decarboxylation of DPA-based polymers, which is of significance for high-performance bio-based polymers.