Lee Olivia P, Lopez Hernandez Hector, Moore Jeffrey S
Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States.
ACS Macro Lett. 2015 Jul 21;4(7):665-668. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.5b00234. Epub 2015 Jun 9.
Polymeric materials that depolymerize into volatiles on command may function as vanishing substrates or packaging for transient electronics. Poly(vinyl -butyl carbonate sulfone) is known to afford low-boiling byproducts upon heat-activated degradation; however, the polymer is rather unstable, even to the degree of being difficult to process and handle. Understanding the origin of this instability is important for the development of robust materials capable of programmed self-destruction. In this work, we show that poly(vinyl -butyl carbonate sulfone)s thermally decompose via carbonate elimination as the rate-determining step, indicating that its thermal instability stems from the lability of the -butyl carbonate group. We further examined the effect of isomeric butyl carbonate side chains on the thermal degradation of poly(vinyl butyl carbonate sulfone)s and found that the degradation onsets range from 91 to 213 °C, yielding as little as 2.77 ± 0.53 wt % residue. Results from our findings will aid in the development of vanishing polymers with tunable thermal degradation.
能够根据指令解聚为挥发性物质的聚合材料可作为瞬态电子产品的消失性基材或封装材料。已知聚（碳酸乙烯酯 - 丁酯砜）在热活化降解时会产生低沸点副产物；然而，该聚合物相当不稳定，甚至难以加工和处理。了解这种不稳定性的根源对于开发能够进行程序自毁的坚固材料很重要。在这项工作中，我们表明聚（碳酸乙烯酯 - 丁酯砜）通过碳酸酯消除作为速率决定步骤进行热分解，这表明其热不稳定性源于碳酸丁酯基团的不稳定性。我们进一步研究了碳酸丁酯侧链异构体对聚（碳酸乙烯酯 - 丁酯砜）热降解的影响，发现降解起始温度范围为91至213°C，残留量低至2.77±0.53 wt%。我们的研究结果将有助于开发具有可调热降解性能的消失性聚合物。
