A straightforward strategy for the efficient synthesis of acrylate and phosphine oxide‐containing vegetable oils and their crosslinked materials

Phosphorus‐containing triglycerides were prepared from a new route that involves the singlet oxygen photo‐oxygenation of high oleic sunflower oil and further reduction of the resulting hydroperoxide derivatives to a mixture of secondary allylic alcohols. These allylic alcohols in presence of chlorodiphenylphosphine give allylic phosphinites capable to undergo a [2,3]‐sigmatropic rearrangement leading to tertiary phosphine oxides directly linked to triglyceride in a one‐pot two‐step reaction. The obtained phosphorus‐containing triglycerides with different hydroxyl content were activated to polymerization by acrylation and these acrylate triglycerides were radically crosslinked in presence of different amounts of pentaerythritol tetra‐acrylate. The thermal, dynamic‐mechanical, and flame retardancy properties of the final materials were evaluated. Thermal and thermo‐oxidative degradation was studied by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, ³¹P HR‐MAS NMR spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 47: 4051–4063, 2009