Chemical and Physical Effects of Processing Environment on Simultaneous Single Crystallization of Biodegradable Poly(ε-caprolactone) and Poly(L-lactide) Brushes and Poly(ethylene glycol) substrate
Saleheh Abbaspoor, Samira Agbolaghi, Farhang Abbasi
Index: 10.1016/j.eurpolymj.2018.04.009
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Abstract
Through growth of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-b-poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and PEG-b-poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) single crystals from dilute solution, the crystallization of crystallizable PCL and PLLA brushes in homo and mixed-brush nanostructures was investigated. Using various graftings, the physical and chemical environmental effects were studied on the brush crystallization. The brush interactions were investigated as chemical environmental effects. The physical environmental effect was also determined by the amorphism/crystallinity and rigidity/flexibility of neighboring brushes. For this purpose, different single crystals were designed with mixed-brushes of amorphous-crystalline (polystyrene (PS), poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), PCL and PLLA), double crystalline (PCL/PLLA), and rod-crystalline polyaniline (PANI)/PCL or PLLA. The type of surrounding brushes and their miscibility with crystallizable brushes, inherent amorphism or crystallinity, and flexibility or rigidity were effective on the behavior of crystallizable brushes and induced crystallization procedure. The neighboring brushes could also prevent the PLLA grafts from crystallization in the presence of PMMA.