Nonisothermal crystallization and melting behavior of the copolymer derived from p-dioxanone and poly(ethylene glycol)

Nonisothermal crystallization and melting behaviors of poly(p-dioxanone)(PPDO)-b-poly(ethylene glycol)(PEG) with mole ratios of 80:20 and 30:70, has been studied by differential scanning calorimeter using various cooling rates. Crystallization behavior of each crystallizable segments of the copolymer was compared with the corresponding segment of homopolymer. For a given composition, the crystallization process began at higher temperature when the slower scanning rates were used. The kinetics of the PPDO segments and the PEG segments in the copolymers under nonisothermal crystallization conditions were analyzed by Ozawa equation and also the crystallization results of the copolymer segments were compared with the corresponding homopolymers. The results showed that the Ozawa equation fails to describe the whole crystallization process of the copolymer segments along with PPDO homopolymer, but describes the crystallization behavior of the PEG homopolymer. Crystallization activation energy and absolute crystallinity values were estimated from the cooling scans (using Kissinger’s method) and fusion endotherms of the subsequent heating scans, respectively.