Macrocycles of poly(alkyl aryl ester) to assist polymer processing

Blends of alkyl aryl polyesters and corresponding macrocyclic oligomers (MCOs) were prepared by coprecipitation with different ratio in order to study viscous properties. The addition of MCOs to the parent polymer system decreases the melt viscosity, so it is potentially easier to process these blends. Macrocycles were prepared by cyclo-depolymerization (CDP) using ring-chain equilibria at different polymer/solvent ratio at low concentrations. During processing, the MCOs can then polymerise through in-situ entropically-driven ring-opening polymerization (ED-ROP). Moreover, it is possible to obtain the suitable polymer/MCOs blends directly from CDP at an appropriate concentration.