On the bio-based furanic polyesters: Synthesis and thermal behavior study of poly(octylene furanoate) using fast and temperature modulated scanning calorimetry

• Poly(octylene furanoate) (POF) is a new biobased polyester.
• The glass transition temperature of POF was found equal to −5 °C.
• The Tcc of POF is 38 °C and its crystallization temperature from the melt 112 °C.
• The melting temperature of POF is 140 °C and its equilibrium Tm is 157 °C.
• From POM it was found out that the size of POF spherulites was less than 10 μm.

Nowadays, there is a constantly growing interest on furanoate-based polyesters in an attempt to substitute the terephthalate-based ones, which are petrochemical-derived. In the present work, the melt polycondensation method has been applied for the preparation of a bio-based furanic polyester, poly(octylene furanoate) (POF). Modern calorimetric approaches such as temperature modulation (TMDSC) and Fast Scanning Calorimetry (FSC) have been employed for the thorough study of the thermal characteristics of the specific polymer, which are described for the first time in literature. The glass transition temperature was found equal to −5 °C, while the equilibrium melting temperature was 157 °C. Additionally, a crystallization regime I to regime II transition was observed at 128 °C as a breakpoint in the Lauritzen–Hoffman plot. The extensive recrystallization was realized by both TMDSC and FSC, since even rates equal to 1000 °C/s could not prevent the phenomenon from occurring. Finally, from the polarized optical microscopy images it was found out that the size of POF spherulites was less than 10 μm.

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