Design of fully aliphatic multiblock poly(ester urethane)s displaying thermoplastic elastomeric properties

By the combination of prepolymers with very different physical/chemical properties, better performance materials can be obtained. In the present study, three hydroxyl-terminated fully aliphatic polyesters have been chain extended to prepare new multiblock poly(ester urethane)s (PEU) displaying thermoplastic elastomeric characteristics. Poly(butylene succinate), poly(1,4-cyclohexylenedimethylene-1,4-cyclohexanedicarboxylate), and poly(neopentyl glycol adipate) have been respectively used as soft-hard, hard and soft segment. The evaluation of molecular, thermal, and mechanical properties and hydrolytic degradation profile permitted to correlate the behavior of the so-obtained materials with their molecular structure, and highlighted that it is possible to nicely tune the final characteristics of this class of PEUs by just varying the mutual amount of the three segments. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.