THERMAL-DECOMPOSITION OF CELLULOSE SYNTHETIC-POLYMER BLENDS CONTAINING GRAFT-COPOLYMERS

The homogeneous grafting of methyl acrylate, methyl methacrylate, or 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate onto cellulose was carried out in a dimethy sulfoxide/paraformaldehyde solvent system. The homopolymer fractions, ungrafted cellulose and attendant synthetic homopolymer, were not extracted from the grafted products. The grafted products are thus regarded as polymer blends containing graft copolymers. The thermal decomposition behavior of the grafted products, cellulose, synthetic polymers, and cellulose/synthetic polymer blends was investigated. The thermal stability of the grafted products with higher graft polymer content decreased much more than that of cellulose and synthetic polymers. The thermal stability of the grafted products with lower graft polymer content and blended samples was almost identical with that of the constituents. The microphase separated structures of the grafted products with higher graft polymer content were fine. The water accessibility of these grafted products was larger than that of cellulose. The difference in thermal decomposition behavior of the grafted and blended samples was correlated to that in compatibility.