Effect of molecular architecture and chemical structure on solid-state and barrier properties of heteroatom-containing aliphatic polyesters

A class of multiblock fully-aliphatic copolyesters containing thio-ether linkages has been synthesized by reactive blending.Solid-state properties have been correlated to the chemical structure and the molecular architecture. With the aim of employing these polymers for food packaging, the permeability behavior to CO2 and O-2 gas has been analysed.The decrease of the degree of crystallinity, due to the copolymerization, together with the flexibility given by the thio-ether containing sequences, deeply influenced the behavior of the copolymers. The length of the copolymer sequences played the major role in tailoring the polymer characteristics. A decrease in the block length caused a decrease in the crystallinity degree and in the flexibility effect.Finally, the copolyesters here presented have been compared to ether-oxygen containing samples of comparable molecular architecture, to evaluate'the effect of the different heteroatom on the polymer properties. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.