Soil burial test for poly(ethylene‐co‐vinyl alcohol)‐graft‐polycaprolactone

Abstract

AbstractThe ring‐opening polymerization of ε‐caprolactone was carried out with poly(ethylene‐co‐vinyl alcohol) as a macroinitiator to synthesize poly(ethylene‐co‐vinyl alcohol)‐graft‐polycaprolactone (EVOH‐g‐PCL). A simple low‐density polyethylene (LDPE)/polycaprolactone (PCL) (64/36) blend lost 5.3 wt % of its original weight after 90 days of a soil burial test. However, the elongation at break of the LDPE/PCL blend remained almost invariable even after the solid burial test because the tensile properties depended mostly on the LDPE phase on account of the poor interaction between the continuous LDPE matrix and the dispersed PCL phase. For EVOH‐g‐PCL, the elongation at break decreased drastically as a result of the soil burial test, and the reduction of the elongation at break was more pronounced for EVOH‐g‐PCL with a higher PCL concentration, even though the weight loss of EVOH‐g‐PCL after the soil burial test was as low as 1.2–1.3% and was nearly independent of the PCL concentration. Few holes were observed in EVOH‐g‐PCL when the PCL concentration was less than 26 wt % after an accelerated hydrolysis experiment at 60°C for 7 days in a 0.1M KOH solution. In contrast, the hydrolysis formed small holes in EVOH‐g‐PCL with a PCL concentration of 36 wt %. The LDPE/PCL blend was much better percolated, as a result of the hydrolysis, than EVOH‐g‐PCL with the same PCL concentration; the soil burial test showed the same results. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 96: 1064–1071, 2005