Preparation and properties of optically active polyurethane/TiO2 nanocomposites derived from optically pure 1,1′-binaphthyl

In this study, optically active polyurethanes (PU) were prepared from chiral 1,1′-binaphthyl (BINOL) and 2,4-toluene diisocyanate (TDI) by the simple hydrogen transfer addition reaction and the high-intensity ultrasonic was applied to the preparation of polyurethane/TiO₂ nanocomposites. The (R)-BPU and (S)-BPU were analyzed by ¹H NMR, FT-IR spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), UV-vis spectroscopy and circular dichroism (CD) spectra. The results indicated that the polymers exhibited stronger CD signals with positive and negative Cotton effect in their CD spectra. Meanwhile, the nanocomposites were characterized by IR, powder X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results manifested the improvement of heat stability of the nanocomposites with the presence of TiO₂ nanoparticles. As a result, the infrared emissivity (8-14 μm) study revealed that the nanocomposites possessed much lower infrared values compared with those of the neat polymers and nanoparticles, respectively.