Sustainable polycaprolactone polyol-based thermoplastic elastomers showing superior mechanical properties and biodegradability Choi Jin Hyeok and Kim Il Pusan National University, South Korea As a means of developing high-performance engineering thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) as well as reducing environmental pollution caused by plastic waste, α,ω-hydroxyl terminated polycaprolactone (PCL) polyols with molecular weights (MWs) of 1,000–4,200 g mol −1 and Ð of 1.30–1.88 have been synthesized by ring-opening polymerization of sustainable ε-caprolactone using a heterogeneous double metal cyanide catalyst (Figure 1(a-b)). 1 A series of poly(ester–ester)s TPE were produced using the PCL polyol and poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT) segments.(Figure 2). 2 The resultant polymers were characterized by spectroscopic, chromatographic, thermal and mechanical analyses. The biodegradability was also evaluated according to ISO-14852 standard. 3 The PCL-based TPE showed superior mechanical properties (Figure 1(c)) and biodegradability (Figure 1(d-e)) to conventional polytetramethylene ether glycol (PTMEG) based TPE due to significant differences in crystallinity and microphase separation behaviors. The introduction of biodegradable PCL demonstrates significant potential for making high-performance TPEs reducing potential environmental concerns.
Figure 1. 1 H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl 3 ) spectra of the ROP of CL collected at different intervals (a), MWs obtained by GPC increased constantly with an increase of [CL] 0 /[EG] 0 (b), Stress-strain curves of TPEs various PCLs with different MWs (c) and PCL-based TPE before biodegradation test (d), PCL-based TPE after biodegradation test.
Figure 2. Schematic for the synthesis of thermoplastic elastomers. References
1. C.H. Tran, M.W. Lee, S.W. Park, J.E. Jeong, S.J. Lee, W. Song, P. Huh and I. Kim, Catalysts , 2021, 11 , 1033. S. H. Jeon, J. E. Jeong, S. Kim, S. Jeon, J. W. Choung and I. Kim, Polymers , 2021, 13 , 525. M. Kunioka, F. Ninomiya and M. Funabash , International journal of molecular sciences , 2009, 10 , 4267-4283.
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