Branched Poly(ethyleneterephthalate)

Several batches of branched poly(ethyleneterephthalate) (PET) of varying degrees of branching were prepared, using common PET monomers and special branching monomers synthesized by us. For the purpose of originality the trifunctional branch points currently employed by various industrial manufacturers were avoided and only tetra-, hexa- and octa-functional branching monomers were created and incorporated into the PET chains. The combination of intrinsic viscosity (I.V.) and light scattering measurements indicates that, as expected, higher functionality branchpoint monomers are more effective branching agents than their lower functionality analogues, and the molecular weight within each series of branched PET increases with increasing concentration of branching residues. Increasing amounts of microgels appear in the preparations as the concentration increases of effective branchpoint residues in the branched PET.