Miscibility and Hydrogen-Bonding Interactions in Blends of Carbon Dioxide/Epoxy Propane Copolymer with Poly(p-vinylphenol) ZHIHAO ZHANG, ZHISHEN MO, HONGFANG ZHANG, YING ZHANG, TIANHAI NA, YUXIAN AN, XIANHONG WANG, XIAOJIANG ZHAO State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022 Received 7 December 2001; revised 3 June 2002; accepted 12 June 2002 Published online 00 June 2002 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).DOI: 10.1002/polb.10252 ABSTRACT: The miscibility and hydrogen-bonding interactions of carbon dioxide and epoxy propane copolymer to poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC)/poly(p-vinylphenol) (PVPh) blends were investigated with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The single glass-transition temperature for each composition showed miscibility over the entire composition range. FTIR indicates the presence of strong hydrogen-bonding interassociation between the hydroxyl groups of PVPh and the oxygen functional groups of PPC as a function of composition and temperature. XPS results testify to intermolecular hydrogen-bonding interactions between the oxygen atoms of carbon– oxygen single bonds and carbon– oxygen double bonds in carbonate groups of PPC and the hydroxyl groups of PVPh by the shift of C 1s peaks and the evolution of three novel O 1s peaks in the blends, which supports the suggestion from FTIR analyses. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 40: 1957–1964, 2002 Keywords: poly(vinylphenol); differential scanning calorimetry (DSC); FTIR; XPS INTRODUCTION In 1969, Inoue et al. 1,2 first reported that the copolymerization of carbon dioxide with epoxy propane could prepare polycarbonate with orga- nometallic compounds as catalysts under rela- tively mild conditions and that the resulting co- polymer was biodegradable. Over the past de- cades, a significant amount of research has been done on the development of new catalysts and on the copolymerization of other monomers with car- bon dioxide. 3,4 In the 1990s, Darensbourg and Haltcamp, 5 Super and Beckman, 6 Mang et al. 7 and others made substantial advances. We used a ternary rare-earth-metal catalyst with a effi- ciency of 85,000 g of polymer/mol to synthesize highly alternating carbon dioxide/epoxy pro- pane copolymer, poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC), whose carbon dioxide content, number- average molecular weight, and weight-average molecular weight exceed 40 wt %, 10  10 4 g/mol, and 50  10 4 g/mol, respectively, 8 and are higher than those reported in the other papers. PPC has been used in various areas such as composite materials, controlled drug- releasing, coating materials, and surfactants. Unfortunately, the practical applications are limited by the lower glass transition tempera- ture (T g  40 °C) and noncrystallinity. For some new and useful properties to be obtained, many attempts have been made to blend PPC with other polymers. We have briefly studied blends of PPC with cellulose, ethyl cellulose, and other cellulose derivatives. 9 Correspondence to: Z. S. Mo (E-mail: mozs@ns.ciac.jl.cn) Journal of Polymer Science: Part B: Polymer Physics, Vol. 40, 1957–1964 (2002) © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1957