Toughening of poly(propylene carbonate) by hyperbranched poly(ester‐amide) via hydrogen bonding interaction |
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| Authors: | Lijie Chen Yusheng Qin Xianhong Wang Yuesheng Li Xiaojiang Zhao Fosong Wang |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Renmin Street 5625, Changchun 130022, PR China;2. Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, PR China;3. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Renmin Street 5625, Changchun 130022, PR China |
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| Abstract: | Poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC) is a biodegradable alternative copolymer of propylene oxide and carbon dioxide. As an amorphous polymer with lower glass transition temperature around 35 °C, PPC shows poor mechanical performance in that it becomes brittle below 20 °C and its dimensional stability deteriorates above 40 °C; thus toughening of PPC is urgently needed. Here we describe a biodegradable hyperbranched poly(ester‐amide) (HBP) that is suitable for this purpose. Compared with pure PPC, the PPC/HBP blend with 2.5 wt% HBP loading showed a 51 °C increase in thermal decomposition temperature and a 100% increase in elongation at break, whilst the corresponding tensile strength remained as high as 45 MPa and tensile modulus showed no obvious decrease. Crazing as well as cavitation was observed in the scanning electron microscopy images of the blends, which provided good evidence for the toughening mechanism of PPC. The intermolecular hydrogen bonding interaction confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectral analysis proved to be the reason for the toughening phenomenon. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry |
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| Keywords: | poly(propylene carbonate) hyperbranched poly(ester‐amide) hydrogen‐bonding interaction biodegradable blends toughening |
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