Bioinspired strategy for tuning thermal stability of PVA via hydrogen-bond crosslink

Although many approaches have been employed to enhance thermal stability of PVA, developing a facile and effective strategy remains highly attractive. Herein, we demonstrate a highly effective approach to strikingly improve thermal stability of PVA by selecting the types of multiamines molecules to tune the hydrogen-bond crosslink density. Results show that only adding 0.5 wt% of 2,4,5,6-tetraaminopyrimidine can make the initial degradation temperature (T-i) and maximum degradation temperature (T-max) of PVA increase by similar to 55 degrees C and 98 degrees C due to the formation of 3D physically H-bond crosslinked network, resulting in superior thermal stability property to those of PVA nanocomposites. Moreover, thermal stability strongly depends on the H-bond crosslink density, and T-i and T-max basically obey the linear hydrogen-bond relations despite some deviations. This work opens up a novel biological methodology for creating thermally stable polymeric materials. (C) 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.