Crystal structure, melting behaviour and equilibrium melting point of star polyesters with crystallisable poly(ε-caprolactone) arms

Star polymers consisting of poly(ε-caprolactone), PCL, attached to third generation dendrimer, hyperbranched and dendron cores have been studied by differential scanning calorimetry and wide-angle X-ray scattering. The degree of polymerisation of the PCL arms of the star polymers ranged from 14 to 81. The crystal unit cell was the same for the star polymers as for their linear PCL analogues. The star polymers showed a lower degree of crystallinity than the linear PCL, suggesting that the dendritic cores imposed restriction on PCL crystallisation. Slow heating of rapidly cooled samples led to crystal rearrangement—a gradual increase in melting point with decreasing heating rate and recrystallisation followed by additional high temperature melting. The tendency for crystal rearrangement was less pronounced in star polymers based on dendrimer or hyperbranched cores, suggesting that the dendritic cores constitute an obstacle to crystal rearrangement. The star polymers showed higher equilibrium melting points than the linear PCL analogues. It is suggested that covalent attachment of the PCL arms to the dendritic core reduced the positional freedom and the entropy of the melt with respect to that of linear PCL.