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ε‑Decalactone: A Thermoresilient and Toughening Comonomer to Poly(l‑lactide)
journal contribution
posted on 2013-08-12, 00:00 authored by Peter Olsén, Tina Borke, Karin Odelius, Ann-Christine AlbertssonThe renewable monomer ε-decalactone
is an excellent partner
to l-lactide, where their copolymers overcome inherent drawbacks
of polylactide, such as low thermal stability and brittleness. ε-Decalactone
is a seven-membered lactone that was successfully polymerized with
Sn(Oct)2 and 1,5,7-triazabicyclo[4.4.0]dec-5-ene into both
an amorphous homopolymer and copolymers with high molecular weight,
low dispersity, and predicted macromolecular architecture. The thermoresilient
nature of ε-decalactone is reflected in a high polymerization
ceiling temperature and increased thermal stability for the prepared
copolymers. The high ceiling temperature enables easy modulation of
the polymerization rate via temperature while maintaining architectural
control. The apparent rate constant was increased 15-fold when the
temperature was increased from 110 to 150 °C. Copolymers of l-lactide and ε-decalactone, either with the latter as
a central block in triblock polymers or with randomly positioned monomers,
exhibited exceptionally tough material characteristics. The triblock
copolymer had an elongation-at-break 250 times greater than that of
pure poly(l-lactide). The toughness of the copolymers is
attributed to the flexible nature of the polymer derived from the
monomer ε-decalactone and to the segment immiscibility. These
properties result in phase separation to soft and hard domains, which
provides the basis for the elastomeric behavior.