Degradation of polymer mixtures. IV. Blends of poly(vinyl acetate) with poly(vinyl chloride) and other chlorine‐containing polymers

TLDR: In this article, the degradation of binary polyvinylacetate/polyvinyl chloride (PVA/PVC) and poly(vinyl polyoxide/polychloroprene) blends was studied by using thermal volatilization analysis, thermogravimetry, evolved gas analysis for hydrogen chloride and acetic acid.

Abstract: The degradation of the binary polymer blends, poly(vinyl acetate)/poly(vinyl chloride), poly(vinyl acetate)/poly(vinylidene chloride) and poly(vinyl acetate)/polychloroprene has been studied by using thermal volatilization analysis, thermogravimetry, evolved gas analysis for hydrogen chloride and acetic acid, and spectroscopic methods. For the first two systems named, strong interaction occurs in the degrading blend, but the polychloroprene blends showed no indication of interaction. In the PVA/PVC and PVA/PVDC blends, hydrogen chloride from the chlorinated polymer causes substantial acceleration in the deacetylation of PVA. Acetic acid from PVA destabilizes PVC but has little effect in the case of PVDC because of the widely differing degradation temperatures of PVA and PVDC. The presence of hydrogen chloride during the degradation of PVA results in the formation of longer conjugated sequences, and the regression in sequence length at high extents of deacetylation found for PVA degraded alone is not observed.