Miscibility and transesterification in blends of liquid crystalline copolyesters and polyarylate

Abstract

Blends of poly(oxybenzoate-p-ethylene terephthalate) (POB-PET) and polyarylate were confirmed to be a partially miscible system by differential scanning calorimetry. When 60/40 POB-PET/PAr blend was annealed at high temperature (above 270 degrees C) for several minutes, the ester-ester interchange( transesterification)in the blend took place immediately, as evidenced by Fourier Transformed infrared analyses. The analysis of the blend annealed at 290 degrees C by H-1-C-13 nuclear magnetic resonance disclosed that there were four new diads appearing in 15 min and an additional one produced in 60 min during the heat treatment. The miscibility between POB-PET and polyarylate increased with the mol concentration of these new diads judging from differential scanning calorimetry. The evolution of the concentration of the diad ethylene glycol-isophthalate during the annealing can be described by a second-order reaction. The activation energy of forming the diad ethylene glycol-isophthalate was 26.5 kcal/mol, and the preexponential factor for the transesterification reaction is 3.7 x 10(8) min(-1). (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.