The Role of Polymer Crystallizability on the Formation of Polymer-Urea-Inclusion Compounds

Polymer-urea inclusion compounds (P-U-ICs) were formed using a series of linear aliphatic polyesters with varying crystallizabilities: from highly crystalline to wholly amorphous. The traditional hexagonal P-U-ICs were obtained irrespective of the crystallinities of the neat guest polyesters. Two distinct co-crystallization mechanisms were evident based on the observation of the change in thermal stabilities of the ICs using DSC and the crystal morphologies by SEM; one involves polymer chain folding back and forth in a lamella-like crystal structure and the other grows much like short chain molecule U-ICs absent of chain reentering different channels. For polymers with sufficient chain length, their inherent flexibility is the key factor determining the co-crystallization mechanism while their crystallizability affects the kinetics, the consequences of which are more pronounced during recrystallization from melt. The amorphicity induced by random ester group placement is an interchain property, which does not play a role in affecting IC thermal stability. Rather, increasing the average ester group content can be understood as introducing more defects in the IC crystal and therefore reduces its thermal stability. The understanding gleaned in this study provides a new avenue for designing P-U-ICs to be used in both theoretical modeling and engineering of high-performance materials.