Synthesis of High Thermal-Resistant Poly(ester-ether) Elastomers from Bio-Based 2,5-Furandicarboxylic Acid

Thermoplastic poly(ester-ether) elastomers (TPEEs) have been applied extensively in automotive components, electrics, medical, and other fields. However, TPEEs with high thermal resistance and shape recovery rate are rarely reported, especially the ones derived from renewable feedstocks. Herein, the renewable 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) and 1,4-cyclohexanedimethanol were taken to construct the hard segment, while poly(tetramethylene glycol) (PTMG) was employed as the soft segment to synthesize poly(ester-ether) elastomers (PCF–PTMG). Investigation showed that PCF–PTMG had excellent thermal resistance with Tm up to 254 °C, which was higher than most of the commercial TPEEs. By adjusting the content of the PTMG segment from 30 to 80 wt %, the tensile strength of synthesized TPEEs increased from 31 to 303 MPa and tensile modulus varied in the range of 17 to 27 MPa. More importantly, PCF–PTMG70, containing 70 wt % of the PTMG segment, showed the elongation at break of 676% and shape recovery rate as high as 77.4% during the first cyclic test at 200% strain, which are higher than those of almost all the TPA-based TPEEs. This work indicates that a bio-based FDCA unit has great potential to serve as a highly crystallizable hard segment, as well as PTMG content adjusted the contribution of the soft segments to synthesize the new poly(ester-ether) elastomers with high thermal resistance.