Poly(hydroxybutyrate) and epichlorohydrin elastomers blends: Phase behavior and morphology

This work studied blends of PHB with epichlorohydrin elastomers, the PEP homopolymer and its copolymer with ethylene oxide, ECO. PHB is a microbial polyester, which is accumulated intracellularly by a large number of microorganisms, presenting characteristics of biodegradability and biocompatibility. It presents a high degree of crystallinity, so is a quite brittle material, and may undergo degradation when is kept for a relatively short time at a temperature above its melting point, about 180 °C. PEP and ECO are linear and amorphous elastomers, exhibit miscibility with many aliphatic polyesters and these elastomers have been used in various branches of technology, such as the automotive industry. The proposed systems combine a polymer with high crystallinity and biodegradability, PHB, with amorphous epichlorohydrin elastomers. Blends were prepared by casting from chloroform solution at different compositions (0, 20, 40, 50, 60, 80 and 100 wt% of PHB). The phase behavior of PHB/PEP and PHB/ECO blends were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and the morphology of the crystalline phase of PHB had been examined by optical microscopy. Blends of PHB/PEP and PHB/ECO have been described in literature as miscible. However, our results from the DSC and DMA show that PHB/PEP and PHB/ECO blends are immiscible. This behavior should be related to the molecular weight of polymers used in the present work, which is higher than the molecular weight of polymers used in the previous works. The crystallization kinetics of PHB is strongly influenced by the presence of the elastomeric phase. The degree of crystallinity of PHB/PEP blends decreases with an increase in the PEP content. PHB/ECO blends present degrees of crystallinity that can be considered nearly independent of the ECO content. Differences in the morphology of the crystalline phase were also observed, and these are attributed to the presence of elastomeric phase in the intraspherulitic zone.