Cardanol (3-pentadecenyl-phenol), a well-known non-edible natural oil obtained as a by-product of the Cashew Industry, represents a valid alternative to petro-based derivatives, thanks to its peculiar chemical structure. When selected as polymer building block in the synthesis of epoxy curing agents or polyols and diols for polyurethane applications, cardanol can impart unique benefits, like chemical resistance, hydrolytic stability, thermal resistance and balanced mechanical properties. Once used in polyurethane prepolymers, it demonstrates various benefits, including favorable and easily tunable deblocking conditions, lower viscosity of resulting NCO-blocked prepolymers and excellent storage stability in comparison to commonly used phenolic compounds (phenol, nonylphenol, in particular). In this paper, novel cardanol-based fully cycloaliphatic derivatives (e.g. cyclohexanol, oxime, lactam-types) will be presented, investigating their use as innovative isocyanate protective groups with faster reactivity and lower deblocking temperatures than petro-derived benchmarks.
