The structure of crystallisable copolymers of l-lactide, ε-caprolactone and glycolide

We apply a new X-ray scattering approach to the study of melt-spun filaments of tri-block and random terpolymers prepared from lactide, caprolactone and glycolide. Both terpolymers contain random sequences, in both cases the overall fraction of lactide units is ∼0.7 and 13C and 1H NMR shows the lact...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polymer (Guilford) 2005-08, Vol.46 (17), p.6411-6428
Main Authors: Channuan, Wasinee, Siripitayananon, Jintana, Molloy, Robert, Sriyai, Montira, Davis, Fred J., Mitchell, Geoffrey R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Exact sciences and technology
Fibers and threads
Forms of application and semi-finished materials
Orientation
Polymer industry, paints, wood
Structure
Technology of polymers
X-ray scattering
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Summary:We apply a new X-ray scattering approach to the study of melt-spun filaments of tri-block and random terpolymers prepared from lactide, caprolactone and glycolide. Both terpolymers contain random sequences, in both cases the overall fraction of lactide units is ∼0.7 and 13C and 1H NMR shows the lactide sequence length to be ∼9–10. A novel representation of the X-ray fibre pattern as series of spherical harmonic functions considerably facilitates the comparison of the scattering from the minority crystalline phase with hot drawn fibres prepared from the poly( l-lactide) homopolymer. Although the fibres exhibit rather disordered structures we show that the crystal structure is equivalent to that displayed by poly( l-lactide) for both the block and random terpolymers. There are variations in the development of a two-phase structure which reflect the differences in the chain architectures. There is evidence that the random terpolymer includes non-lactide units in to the crystal interfaces to achieve a well defined two-phase structure.
ISSN:0032-3861
1873-2291
DOI:10.1016/j.polymer.2005.04.097