Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.57, No.45, 15254-15261, 2018
Synthesis and Characterization of Novel Water-Soluble Polyamides with Enhanced Gas Barrier Properties
Poly(hexamethylene isophthalamide) (PA6I), an amorphous polymer characterized by high temperature resistance and significant oxygen barrier performances, has been chemically modified by using the 5-sulfoisophthalic acid sodium salt as a comonomer. Then, ionic groups have been randomly distributed along the polymeric chains. The new sulfonated PA6I samples were studied in order to understand structure-property relationships. It results that ionomeric PA6Is present an increment of T-g and, accordingly, a decrement of the oxygen transmission rate at 50% of relative humidity with the increment of the ionic content. Ionic groups, indeed, induce the formation of new interactions among the polymer chains, and then, a complex macromolecular network is realized. Interestingly, a molar amount of ionic groups equal to or higher than 10% makes sulfonated polyamides water-soluble. This characteristic, exploited to prepare new coatings on different polymers, opens a range of new applications for ionomeric PA6I.