Enhanced Thermal Stability and UV-Shielding Properties of Poly(vinyl alcohol) Based on Esculetin

In this article, PVA composites with outstanding thermal stability, UV shielding, and high transparency were fabricated on the basis of traditional Chinese medicine (esculetin). Characterization data have suggested in which the resulting PVA/esculetin (ESC) composites display excellent thermal stability compared to pure PVA and most of the PVA nanocomposites. The pyrolysis mechanism of PVA before and after modification with esculetin varies from chain unzipping degradation followed by chain random scission. The DPPH scavenging activity and FTIR measurements have illustrated that esculetin can scavenge reactive radicals, which leads to improvements in thermal stability and a change in the pyrolysis mechanism of PVA. More importantly, the resulting composites can almost completely block the whole UV region (200-400 nm) without any deterioration of the high transparency of the composites. Therefore, the composites can convert harmful UV light into blue light effectively, which is beneficial for their application as optical materials and devices.