ABSTRACT Mechanochemistry is an efficient, solvent‐reduced, and extra heat‐free green chemistry method. In this work, mechanochemistry is applied to the polymerization of PLA. The resulting PLA was esterified with citric acid to obtain a vitrimer‐like polymer, which was also carried out via mechanochemistry. These mechanochemistry processes were performed using a planetary ball mill, which is favorable for scale‐up synthesis. The synthesized polymer was characterized by NMR and SEC, and the vitrimer‐like properties were evaluated by rheology, DSC, TGA, and shape memory behavior.
Huang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.