Soybean oil can make plastic

Soybean oil is widely used in foods, fuels, lubricants, inks, and personal products. A research team at Iowa State University in the United States found that using soy oil can make plastics that have the outstanding characteristics that petroleum-based plastics do not have.
The team claimed that while others are studying the manufacture of plastics from soy carbohydrates and soy protein and soybean oil derivatives, only our process is to make plastics directly from soy oil itself.
The plastic is made by heating a mixture of 40%-65% (mass fraction) soybean oil with different amounts of styrene and divinylbenzene to 13°C. The amount of soybean oil added is large, and the resulting plastic is a thermoplastic elastomer. On the contrary, it is a hard thermosetting plastic.
The research team expects that this kind of bioplastic has the promising features that petroleum-based plastics do not have: It has good noise and vibration reduction effects, can be used for noise reduction in washing machines, and has excellent shape memory capabilities. Shape memory plastics can be heated, reconstituted, cooled, and produced into new shapes. When heated, it will return to its original shape. Below 200°C, the plastic's noise reduction and shape memory characteristics change with its thermal stability.
This plastic is opaque with brown color, and expensive divinylbenzene is also used as a cross-linker to enhance the strength of the plastic. Researchers are considering solving these problems. Although soybean oil is cheap, divinylbenzene is more expensive. The research team is looking for alternatives to divinylbenzene. In addition, they are also studying the biodegradability of this plastic.
According to the market analysis report, the process can be widely used in the manufacture of thermoset plastics, without the need for more sophisticated technology, because the plastic can compete with some plastics with similar properties.