A one-step strategy for aliphatic poly(carbonate-ester)s with high performance derived from CO2, propylene oxide and l-lactide

To improve the performance of PPC, aliphatic poly(carbonate-ester)s were prepared in one-step strategy from the terpolymerization of CO2, propylene oxide (PO), and l-lactide (L-LA) catalyzed by zinc glutarate. Consequently giving high-molecular weight terpolymers (PPCLAs) in a very high yield (8450.8-9435.8gmol(-1) of Zn). The resulting terpolymers PPCLAs were characterized by H-1 NMR, showing that PPCLAs had an almost alternating structure for the components of CO2, PO, and L-LA. The influence of molecular weight and L-LA content on the properties of PPCLAs was also investigated. Differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis (measurements revealed that the glass transition temperature (T-g) and thermal decomposition temperature (T-d) of PPCLAs are all much higher than those of PPC and increased with increasing molecular weight and L-LA content. Tensile tests showed that the high mechanical properties of PPCLAs are due to the introduction of L-LA into the copolymerization of CO2 and PO. Furthermore, PPCLA4 exhibits high degradability, and after 10weeks, the weight loss increases up to 6.58%, which is significantly higher than that of PPC of 4.58%. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.