文摘
A series of poly(ether ester) thermoplastic elastomer were synthesized by a novel single step of cyclic butylene terephthalate (CBT) and poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) in the presence of stannoxane catalyst at an elevated temperature. The resultant copolymers (pCBT–PEG) based on polymerized cyclic butylene terephthalate (pCBT) as the hard segment and PEG as the soft segment were characterized by means of fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FI-IR), proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) testing. The influence of hard segment length on the properties of the copolymer was investigated in the case of the soft segment length remaining constant. It is found that the pCBT segment length calculated from 1H NMR spectra was decreased with the increase of PEG content. The glass transition, melting and crystallization temperatures and the degree of crystallinity of hard segments were increased with the increase of the pCBT segment length. Thermogravimetry (TG) and derivative TG (DTG) results revealed that the thermal degradation of copolymers was slower than that of the pCBT homopolymer. Mechanical properties of polymers were also reported and the stiffness of the copolymer was improved with the increase of hard segment length. Keywords Poly(ether ester) elastomer Cyclic butylene terephthalate Poly(ethylene glycol) Ring opening polymerization