Morphological Study on Hydrolytic Degradation of Poly(tetramethylene succinate) Single Crystals and Spherulites

The morphological changes of Poly(tetramethylene succinate) single crystal lamellae by hydrolysis are investigated, using TEM, WAXD and SAXS. And the morphology of PTMS spherulites was also observed by optical microscopy after treatments as well as single crystal lamellae. The edge region of single crystal lamella can be most easily affected in the initial stage of hydrolysis. As the hydrolysis time increases, the lamellae are separated into small fragments which may be started from the uneven or irregular parts of the surface. The WAXD results showed that crystallinity were increased with increasing of treatment time. The lamellar thickness decreased at the initial stage of hydrolysis and increased again. There were cracks on the surface of spherulites after hydrolysis and the direction of cracks were tangential direction of spherulites. This result was thought to be from the uniformity of molecular arrangement in the crystallographic unit cell.