Striking Dispersion of Recrystallized Poly(ethylene glycol)-Poly(lactic acid) Solvent-Casting Blend

TL;DR

This study investigates the rapid dispersion and dissolution of high PEG content in recrystallized PEG-PLA blends, revealing a novel phase separation mechanism validated by multiple characterization techniques.

Contribution

It uncovers a unique dispersion phenomenon in high PEG content blends due to phase separation caused by thermal recrystallization, not previously reported.

Findings

High PEG content (30%) blends rapidly disperse in water.

Recrystallization induces phase separation leading to dispersion.

Lower PEG content and quenched samples do not show this behavior.

Abstract

The solvent casted Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) blend was recrystallized by the thermal treatment of a heating and cooling cycle. The high PEG content blend (30\%wt) showed a striking dispersion behavior, that the materials rapidly dispersed and dissolved in the aqueous environment in a few hours. This phenomenon has not been reported by others, and was not observed in low PEG content samples of 5\%, 10\%, and 20\%, or quenched(amorphous) samples. We hypothesized the mechanism that the chain rearrangement during the thermal treatment leads to the phase separation. And with the phase separation in the recrystallized samples, the PEG potions rapidly dissolved in the aqueous environment, left out the small PLA spherulites being separated and dispersed in the solution. The same underlying reason can also be inferred from the degradation behaviors of other samples. Characterizations of DSC, XRD, and SEM have been done to validate our hypothesis.