Enhancing the Crystallization Performance of Poly(L-lactide) by Intramolecular Hybridizing with Tunable Self-assembly-type Oxalamide Segments

In this work, hydroxyl-terminated oxalamide compounds N^(1),N^(2)-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)oxalamide(OXA1) and N^(1),N^(1)′-(ethane-1,2-diyl)bis(N^(2)-(2-hydroxyethyl)oxalamide(OXA2) were synthesized to initiate the ring-opening polymerization of L-lactide for preparation of oxalamide-hybridized poly(L-lactide)(PLA_(OXA)), i.e., PLA_(OXA1) and PLA_(OXA2). The crystallization properties of PLA were improved by the self-assembly of the oxalamide segments in PLA_(OXA) which served as the initial heterogeneous nuclei. The crystal growth kinetics was studied by HoffmanLauritzen theory and it revealed that the nucleation energy barrier of PLA_(OXA1) and PLA_(OXA2) was lower than that of PLA. Consequently, PLA_(OXA) could crystallize much faster than PLA, accompanied with a decrease in spherulite size and half-life crystallization time by 74.8% and 86.5%(T=125 ℃), respectively. In addition, the final crystallinity of PLA_(OXA1) and PLA_(OXA2) was 6 and 8 times higher, respectively, in comparison with that of neat PLA under a controlled cooling rate of 10 ℃/min. The results demonstrate that the hybridization of oxalamide segments in PLA backbone will serve as the self-heteronucleation for promoting the crystallization rate. The higher the content of oxalamide segments(PLA_(OXA2) compared with PLA_(OXA1)) is, the stronger the promotion effect will be. Therefore, this study may provide a universal approach by hybridizing macromolecular structure to facilitate the crystallization of semi-crystalline polymer materials.