Synthesis of High Transparency Polyarylates Containing Cyclohexane Group

Abstract A new kind of polyarylates containing different proportion of cyclohexane units in the main chain were synthesized by using 2,2-bis (4-hydroxyphenyl) propane (BPA), 4, 4’-cyclohexane-1, 1’-diyldiphenol (BPZ), terephthaloyl dichloride (TPC) and isophthaloyl dichloride (IPC) through interfacial copolymerization at 25 oC. The intrinsic viscosity of resultant PZAs was 0.49-0.97 dL/g. The FT-IR, 1H-NMR and XRD was used to characterize the chemical structure of polymer. The optical properties of PZAs were performed on UV-vis spectrophotometer. With the cyclohexane unit proportion in the polymer backbones increased to 40%, the transmittance at 400 nm and 450 nm can reach up to 87.41% and 88.07% respectively and the cutoff wavelength is 294 nm. These resultant copolymers were also found to have good thermal, mechanical performance and melt flowability (glass transition temperature of 194.8-197.1 oC, 5% mass loss temperature about 461 oC, tensile strength of 60-71 MPa, Young’s modulus:1.47-1.61 GPa, melt complex viscosity of 47-790 Pa·s at 310 oC during the testing time (30 min)). The comprehensive properties of the resultant copolymers were similar or even much better than that of the commercial polyarylate U-100, they can be facile processed with solution or melt method and can be potential used in optical thin films and optical microlens.