Phenolic foams modified by cardanol through bisphenol modification

In this study, cardanol, a natural phenol, has been applied to toughen phenolic foam by bisphenol modification. In order to verify the occurrence of Friedel–Craft alkylation between cardanol and phenol on the side chain, FTIR, and NMR had been used to characterize the bisphenol successfully. With the introduction of cardanol, the viscosity of prepolymers increased. The SEM results demonstrated that the some cells with increasingly large size existed, when the dosage of cardanol increased. With respect to the mechanical properties, phenolic foams modified by 10 wt % cardanol increased by 22% in flexural strength and 28% in bending modulus compared to pure phenolic foams, which indicates that the incorporation of cardanol does improve the toughness of phenolic foams. In addition, the effects of different dosage of cardanol on the apparent density and thermal stability of phenolic foams were investigated. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 39942.