Process for Making Improved Epoxies and Plastics from Sugar

Technology Description:

ARS researchers have developed a way to make heat-tolerant polymers from sucrose (sugar) that can be used to make adhesives, plastics, base coatings, and composites. Sucrose is an ideal agricultural starting material for industrial use, since the United States has readily-available domestic raw material sources – sugarcane and sugar beet grown in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Southern, Mid- Atlantic, and Northern States. Using sugar to make polymers has several advantages over petrochemical substances, including versatility, low cost syntheses, non-toxicity, and better performance characteristics. It is also relatively inexpensive at about 17 cents a pound.

Industrial companies that make plastics, toys, windshields, paints, adhesives and glues, paints and coatings would benefit from this invention.

Please refer to Patent Number 5,789,469, "Polymers Having Enhanced Thermal Stabilities and Methods for Their Preparation Using Stabilization Agents 1,6,6'-Trimethacryloyl 2,3,3',4,4',-Penta-O-Methylsucrose 1,2,3,3',4,4',6,6'-Octa-O-Allylsucrose 1',2,3,3',4,4',6,6'-Octo-O-Crotylsucrose," which issued on August 4, 1998.