A one‐step strategy for aliphatic poly(carbonate‐ester)s with high performance derived from CO2, propylene oxide and l‐lactide

To improve the performance of PPC, aliphatic poly(carbonate‐ester)s were prepared in one‐step strategy from the terpolymerization of CO₂, propylene oxide (PO), and l ‐lactide (L ‐LA) catalyzed by zinc glutarate. Consequently giving high‐molecular weight terpolymers (PPCLAs) in a very high yield (8450.8–9435.8 g mol^?1 of Zn). The resulting terpolymers PPCLAs were characterized by ¹H NMR, showing that PPCLAs had an almost alternating structure for the components of CO₂, PO, and L‐LA. The influence of molecular weight and L‐LA content on the properties of PPCLAs was also investigated. Differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis (measurements revealed that the glass transition temperature (T _g) and thermal decomposition temperature (T _d) of PPCLAs are all much higher than those of PPC and increased with increasing molecular weight and L‐LA content. Tensile tests showed that the high mechanical properties of PPCLAs are due to the introduction of L‐LA into the copolymerization of CO₂ and PO. Furthermore, PPCLA4 exhibits high degradability, and after 10 weeks, the weight loss increases up to 6.58%, which is significantly higher than that of PPC of 4.58%. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.