Sequence Analysis of Poly(ethylene terephthalate)/Poly(butylene terephthalate) Copolymer Prepared by Ester-Interchange Reactions

摘要

The molecular structure of the copolyester formed through the interchange reaction in poly(ethylene terephthalate)/poly(butylene terephthalate) blends was investigated with ~13C-NMR spectroscopy. The molar fractions of heterolinkage triads in the copolyesters were lower than the values calculated by Bernoullian statistics; this indicates that the sequence of heterolinkages was far from a random distribution at the initial stage of the interchange reaction. However, the randomness increased and the number-average sequence length decreased with reaction time. The solubility of the blend decreased with increasing sequence length, resulting from the formation of block copolymers with long sequence lengths at the initial stage of the interchange reaction. The solubility of the copolyester formed by a dibutyltin dilaurate (DBTDL)-catalyzed reaction was higher than that of the copolyester formed by a titanium tetrabutoxide-catalyzed reaction; this is related to the fact that alcoholysis prevailed in the DBTDL-catalyzed reaction.