Preparation of poly(butylene succinate) vitrimer with thermal shape stability via transesterification reaction

Abstract

AbstractPoly(butylene succinate) (PBS) refers to a high‐performance biodegradable polymer employed to substitute petroleum polymers that cause environmental issues. However, PBS exhibits the defect of flowing above the melting point and rapid dripping for its poor melt strength. Accordingly, this study proposed a novel method to fabricate PBS vitrimer by exploiting reactive extrusion technology to mix diepoxide with PBS and then by employing zinc acetate as a catalyst to crosslink the PBS. Therefore, after the reaction extrusion blending, the blend still has a lower viscosity and high processing performance; in the subsequent curing process, the polymer undergoes a transesterification reaction and the viscosity increases. Via transesterification to form a cross‐linked network, the storage modulus, and loss modulus of PBS vitrimer at 140°C reach 55,800% and 3500% of pure PBS, respectively. At this time, the crystallinity of PBS vitrimer is still as high as 56.9% (The crystallinity of pure PBS is 47.4%). And the shape stability of PBS at high temperatures was significantly improved. Moreover, PBS vitrimer could still be reshaped after the cross‐linking process. This study proposed a facile method to produce PBS materials exhibiting high thermal shape stability.