Laccase‐Catalyzed Curing of Natural Phenolic Lipids and Product Properties

This paper describes the laccase‐catalyzed curing of phenolic lipids from renewable resources. The phenolic lipids employed (urushiol, laccol and thitsiol) are the saps of oriental lacquer trees. The curing of urushiol and laccol efficiently proceeded in the presence of protein hydrolysate, yielding the crosslinked film with high gloss surface and high hardness. Dynamic viscoelasticity analysis and FT‐IR monitoring of the curing suggested that the crosslinking mechanism is similar to that of the natural urushi. This study provides a new methodology of the enzymatic curing for coating materials from inexpensive renewable resources; therefore, the present method may provide with a future environmentally benign process of coating.

Keywords:

• curing
• enzymatic catalysis
• laccase
• laccol
• natural phenolic lipid
• thitsiol
• urushiol

5 Acknowledgement

We wish to celebrate the 80th birthday of Professor Otto Vogl. His contribution to the polymer community worldwide is greatly acknowledged. He likes Japan, visited many times, and performed fruitful collaborations with Japanese scientists. Accordingly, he has many good friends and coworkers. He has deep knowledge in many subjects in Japan. One of such for him is Urushi as a part of Japanese culture, which is reflected by his scientific papers referred here.