A heat initiated 3D shape recovery and biodegradable thermoplastic tolerating a strain of 5

It is discovered that biodegradable Poly (butylene succinate-co-butylene terephthalate) with BT content about 35 mol% can be an excellent heat-initiated 3D shape memory thermoplastic. Upon heating around 90 °C, it can quickly and fully recover its 3D shape from the temporary shape obtained by abused deformation (bending, twisting and stretching up to 500% elongation). The reversion ratio is >97% after over 35 cycle times. This thermoplastic material can potentially have many important applications and much better than those reported in literature in terms of its overall performance (large deformation, high reversion ratio and cycle times). The mechanism for the excellent memory of this thermoplastic can be attributed to its reversible nanostructures, confirmed with Wide Angle X-ray Diffraction (WAXD) and Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS).