A novel kind of ABA triblock copolymers consisting of a poly(dimethylsiloxane) flanked by two poly(lactide) blocks has been developed.  The synthesis was carried out using a hydroxyl end functionalized poly(dimethylsiloxane) previously prepared via cationic ring-opening polymerization of octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane as a macroinitiator for the ring-opening polymerization of the dilactide, yielding PLA-b-PDMS-b-PLA copolymers with narrow molecular weight-distributions.. It was shown that the properties of the resulting polymers strongly depend on the ratio of the block-lengths. The obtained materials offer potential for application in the field of thermoplastic elastomers.

Block copolymers of Poly(dimethylsiloxane) and Poly(lactide)

239th National Meeting (2010)

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