Crystallization and melting behavior of the soft and hard segments in poly(ester-ether)s. II. Ethylene oxide-butylene terephthalate segmented copolymers

The crystallization behavior of a series of ethylene oxide-butylene terephthalate (EOBT) segmented copolymers with different soft segment molecular weight and hard segment weight content were examined by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and polarized microscope. Combined with the comparison with the crystallization behavior of ethylene oxide-ethylene terephthalate (EOET) segmented copolymers, it can be concluded that the crystallizability of both the soft segments and the hard segments in poly(ester-ether) segmented copolymers is much worse than those of the corresponding homopolymers due to the interactions between the soft and the hard segments. The crystallizability of the soft segments is mainly determined by the soft segment molecular weight, but is weakened by the hard segments. On the other hand, the soft segments have complicated influences on the crystallization of the hard segments. The melting temperatures of the hard segments change monotonically with the average hard segment length, but the corresponding melting enthalpies will reach a maximum at an intermediate soft segment molecular weight. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 37: 2928–2940, 1999