Copolymerization of L-Lactide and ε-Caprolactone promoted by zinc complexes with phosphorus based ligands
Ilaria D'Auria,
Marina Lamberti,
Raffaella Rescigno,
Vincenzo Venditto,
Mina Mazzeo
Affiliations
Ilaria D'Auria
Department of Chemistry and Biology “Adolfo Zambelli”, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, 84084 Fisciano, Salerno, Italy
Marina Lamberti
Department of Chemistry and Biology “Adolfo Zambelli”, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, 84084 Fisciano, Salerno, Italy
Raffaella Rescigno
Department of Chemistry and Biology “Adolfo Zambelli”, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, 84084 Fisciano, Salerno, Italy
Vincenzo Venditto
Department of Chemistry and Biology “Adolfo Zambelli”, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, 84084 Fisciano, Salerno, Italy; INSTM Research Unit, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Mina Mazzeo
Department of Chemistry and Biology “Adolfo Zambelli”, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, 84084 Fisciano, Salerno, Italy; Corresponding author.
The zinc complexes 1 and 2 bearing chelating phosphorous based pincer ligands were found to catalyze the ring-opening copolymerization of L-lactide and ε-caprolactone in the melt at 110 °C to obtain a series of random copolymers in which the monomer distributions were coherent with the monomer ratio in the feed. All the obtained copolymers showed high molecular masses with monomodal and moderately narrow distributions. The thermal properties of the achieved copolymers (Tg, glass transition temperature, and Tm, melting temperature) were strongly dependent on their composition. A linear dependence of Tg with molar percentage of lactide in the copolymers was observed over a temperature range from -59 °C (pure polycaprolactone) to 55 °C (pure polylactide).
