A New Self-Healing Degradable Copolymer Based on Polylactide and Poly(p-dioxanone)

In this paper, the copolymerization of poly (p-dioxanone) (PPDO) and polylactide (PLA) was carried out via a Diels–Alder reaction to obtain a new biodegradable copolymer with self-healing abilities. By altering the molecular weights of PPDO and PLA precursors, a series of copolymers (DA2300, DA3200, DA4700 and DA5500) with various chain segment lengths were created. After verifying the structure and molecular weight by 1H NMR, FT-IR and GPC, the crystallization behavior, self-healing properties and degradation properties of the copolymers were evaluated by DSC, POM, XRD, rheological measurements and enzymatic degradation. The results show that copolymerization based on the DA reaction effectively avoids the phase separation of PPDO and PLA. Among the products, DA4700 showed a better crystallization performance than PLA, and the half-crystallization time was 2.8 min. Compared to PPDO, the heat resistance of the DA copolymers was improved and the Tm increased from 93 °C to 103 °C. Significantly, the rheological data also confirmed that the copolymer was self-healing and showed obvious self-repairing properties after simple tempering. In addition, an enzyme degradation experiment showed that the DA copolymer can be degraded by a certain amount, with the degradation rate lying between those of PPDO and PLA.