ORIGINAL PAPER Poly(vinyl chloride) plasticized with succinate esters: synthesis and characterization Amanda Stuart • Megan M. McCallum • Daming Fan • Dale J. LeCaptain • Choon Y. Lee • Dillip K. Mohanty Received: 21 September 2009 / Revised: 18 December 2009 / Accepted: 28 March 2010 / Published online: 13 April 2010 Ó Springer-Verlag 2010 Abstract Phthalates pose adverse health effects due to their propensity to leach and the most common, di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and di-n-octyl phthalate (DOP), are petroleum-based. Conversely, di-esters, succinates are biobased (pro- duced from fermentation of biomass), biodegradable, and therefore potential sus- tainable replacements for phthalates. A series of succinates, di-octyl succinate (DOS), di-hexyl succinate (DHS), di-butyl succinate (DBS), and di-ethyl succinate (DES), were mixed with poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC). The interaction of the plas- ticizer ester carbonyl with PVC shows an average -5 cm -1 shift of the carbonyl absorbance peak energy. The glass transition temperatures (T g ), were monitored by differential scanning calorimetry and dynamic mechanical analyses. The T g s of DOS and DHS plasticized PVC were significantly lower than DOP plasticized PVC at a lower percent mass. On the other hand, PVC plasticized with either DBS or DES exhibited a similar trend in lowering the T g as that of DOP plasticized PVC. Keywords PVC Á Succinate Á Plasticizer Á Biobased Introduction Plasticizers are used extensively to provide flexibility and ease of processing for poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), and other polymers including natural rubber, cellulose, poly(vinyl butyral), and poly(vinyl acetate) [1]. As much as 40% by weight of a PVC product can be non-covalently bonded plasticizer. Due to this lack of covalent bonding, plasticizers can leach out of products into the application environments [2]. A. Stuart Á M. M. McCallum Á D. Fan Á D. J. LeCaptain (&) Á C. Y. Lee Á D. K. Mohanty Department of Chemistry, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI 48859, USA e-mail: lecap1dj@cmich.edu 123 Polym. Bull. (2010) 65:589–598 DOI 10.1007/s00289-010-0271-4