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Photo-grafting Poly(acrylic acid) onto Poly(lactic acid) Chains in Solution

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Abstract

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is one of the most important bio-plastics, and chemical modification of the already-polymerized poly(lactic acid) chains may enable optimization of its material properties and expand its application areas. In this study, we demonstrated that poly(lactic acid) can be readily dissolved in acrylic acid at room temperature, and acrylic acid can be graft-polymerized onto poly(lactic acid) chains in solution with the help of photoinitiator benzophenone under 254 nm ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. Similar photo-grafting polymerization of acrylic acid (PAA) has only been studied before in the surface modification of polymer films. The graft ratio could be controlled by various reaction parameters, including irradiation time, benzophenone content, and monomer/polymer ratios. This photo-grafting reaction resulted in high graft ratio (graft ratio PAA/PLA up to 180%) without formation of homopolymers of acrylic acid. When the PAA/PLA graft ratio was higher than 100%, the resulting PLA-g-PAA polymer was found dispersible in water. The pros and cons of the photo-grafting reaction were also discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21434008). We thank Professor Lei Tao and his laboratory for the GPC characterization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Jia-Xing Wang, Yan-Bin Huang & Wan-Tai Yang

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  1. Jia-Xing Wang
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  2. Yan-Bin Huang
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  3. Wan-Tai Yang
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Correspondence to Yan-Bin Huang.

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Wang, JX., Huang, YB. & Yang, WT. Photo-grafting Poly(acrylic acid) onto Poly(lactic acid) Chains in Solution. Chin J Polym Sci 38, 137–142 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-019-2308-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-019-2308-y

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