Miscibility, crystallization behavior and morphology of novel poly(butylene suberate) and poly(vinyl phenol) blends

Abstract

In this research, we first prepared novel crystalline poly(butylene suberate) (PBSub) and amorphous poly(vinyl phenol) (PVPh) blends from a viewpoint of specific interaction and further studied the miscibility, crystallization behavior, and morphology of PBSub/PVPh blends with several techniques. Both a single composition dependent glass transition temperature and the depression of the equilibrium melting point of PBSub indicated that PBSub/PVPh blends were miscible over the whole blend compositions. We further investigated the crystallization behavior of neat and blended PBSub under differ crystallization conditions, and found that the nonisothermal melt crystallization behavior and overall isothermal melt crystallization kinetics of PBSub were suppressed in the blends, with respect to neat PBSub. The spherulitic morphology and growth rates of neat and blended PBSub were studied at different degrees of supercooling, revealing that the degree of supercooling was the key factor to influence the crystalline morphology and growth. The blending with PVPh showed little influence on the crystal structure but slightly reduced degree of crystallinity of PBSub in the blends.