Internal plasticization of poly(vinyl) chloride using glutamic acid as a branched linker to incorporate four plasticizers per anchor point

Abstract

Internal plasticization of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) using thermal azide-alkyne Huisgen dipolar cycloaddition between azidized PVC and electron-poor acetylenediamides incorporating a branched glutamic acid linker resulted in incorporation of four plasticizing moieties per attachment point on the polymer chain. A systematic study incorporating either alkyl or polyethylene glycol esters provided materials with varying degrees of plasticization, with depressed Tg values ranging from −1 °C to 62 °C. Three interesting trends were observed. First, Tg values of PVC bearing various internal plasticizers were shown to decrease with increasing chain length of the plasticizing ester. Second, branched internal plasticizers bearing triethylene glycol chains had lower Tg values compared to those with similar length long-chain alkyl groups. Finally, thermogravimetric analysis of these internally plasticized PVC samples revealed that these branched internal plasticizers bearing alkyl chains are more thermally stable than similarity branched plasticizers bearing triethylene glycol units. These internal tetra-plasticizers were synthesized and attached to PVC-azide in three simple synthetic steps. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2019, 57, 1821–1835.