Synthesis of high transparency polyarylates containing cyclohexane group

A new kind of polyarylates containing different proportion of cyclohexane units in the main chain were synthesized by using 2,2-bis (4-hydroxyphenyl) propane (BPA), 4, 4′-cyclohexane-1, 1′-diyldiphenol (BPZ), terephthaloyl dichloride (TPC) and isophthaloyl dichloride (IPC) through interfacial copolymerization at 25 °C. The intrinsic viscosity of resultant PZAs was 0.49–0.97 dL/g. The FT-IR, 1H NMR and XRD was used to characterize the chemical structure of polymer. The optical properties of PZAs were performed on UV–vis spectrophotometer. With the cyclohexane unit proportion in the polymer backbones increased to 40%, the transmittance at 400 nm and 450 nm can reach up to 87.41% and 88.07% respectively and the cutoff wavelength is 294 nm. These resultant copolymers were also found to have good thermal, mechanical performance and melt flowability (glass transition temperature of 194.8–197.1 °C, 5% mass loss temperature about 461 °C, tensile strength of 60–71 MPa, Young's modulus:1.47–1.61 GPa, melt complex viscosity of 47–790 Pa s at 310 °C during the testing time (30 min)). The comprehensive properties of the resultant copolymers were similar or even much better than that of the commercial polyarylate U-100, they can be facile processed with solution or melt method and can be potential used in optical thin films and optical microlens.