Crystallization behavior of copolyesterurethanes containing different weight contents of crystallizable poly(ε-caprolactone) segments

Multiblock copolymers composed of crystallizable poly(ω-pentadecalactone) (PPDL) and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) segments, which are linked via an aliphatic urethane unit, named PDLCL, have been recently introduced as temperature-memory materials. In this work, we studied the effect of different PCL weight content on the crystallization behavior of both PCL and PPDL domains in PDLCLs by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), optical microscopy (OM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results demonstrated that the nucleation mechanism of PCL crystals, the crystallization and melting temperatures of PCL domains, as well as their crystal morphology and size were found to change with varying composition, i.e., PCL weight content.