Journal of Chemical Engineering & Process Technology
Open Access

Abstract

Synthesis and characterization of bio-based poly (hexamethylene 2, 5 furanodicarboxylate) - block-poly (tetrahydrofuran) copolymers

Sandra Paszkiewicz, I Irska, A Zubkiewicz, E Piesowicz, A Szymczyk, Z Rozwadowski and K Gorący

A series of poly (hexamethylene 2, 5-furanodicarboxylate)-block-poly (tetrahydrofuran) (PHF-b-F-pTHF) copolymers were synthesized utilizing polycondensation in the melt. The content of pTHF flexible segments varied from 25 to 75 wt. %. 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses was applied to confirm the molecular structure of the materials. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), dynamic mechanical measurements (DMTA), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) allow characterizing the supramolecular structure of the synthesized copolymers. SEM analysis was applied to show the differences in the block copolymers’ morphologies concerning their chemical structure. The influence of flexible segments’ amount in copolymers on the phase transition temperatures, thermal properties, as well as thermo-oxidative and thermal stability was analyzed. TGA analysis along with tensile tests (static and cyclic) confirmed the utilitarian performance of the synthesized bio-based materials. It was found that an increase in the amount of pTHF caused the increase of both number-average and weight-average molecular weights and intrinsic viscosities, and at the same time causing the shift of the values of phase transition temperatures toward lower ones. Besides, PHF-b-F-pTHF containing 75 wt. % of F-pTHF units was proved to be a promising thermoplastic shape memory polymer (SMP) with a switching temperature of 20 oC. The studies were financed by the National Science Centre within project SONATA no 2018/31/D/ST8/00792.

Published Date: 2021-02-24; Received Date: 2020-09-24