Poly (lactic acid) blends: Processing, properties and applications.

Polylactic acid blends: The future of green, light and tough

The majority of materials used for short-term and disposable packaging application are non-biodegradable which are not satisfying the demands in environmental safety and sustainability. Biodegradable polymers are an alternative for these non-biodegradable materials. The biodegradable polymeric materials can degrade in a reasonable time period without causing environmental problems. However, biodegradable polymers possess some limitations such as comparatively high cost, insufficient mechanical performances, and inferior thermal stability to extend their widespread application in packaging industry. To overcome these limitations, one of the most commonly used strategies is melt blending of dissimilar biodegradable polymers. Unfortunately, most of the biodegradable polymer blends exhibit insufficient performance because they are thermodynamically immiscible as well as exhibit poor compatibility between the blended components. It has been established that the compatibilization is a well-known strategy to improve the performances of the immiscible biodegradable polymer blends by enhancing the adhesion between the phases. As a result, recent studies focus on various compatibilizers to enhance the performances of the resulting biodegradable polymer blends. This review summarizes the recent developments on a variety of biodegradable polymer blends compatibilized by melt processing with a main focus of ex situ and in situ compatibilization strategies. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017, 135, 45726.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/app.45726

Biodegradable compatibilized polymer blends for packaging applications: A literature review

A significantly growing interest is to design new biodegradable polymers in order to solve fossil resources and environmental pollution problems associated with conventional plastics. A kind of new biodegradable polymers, aliphatic–aromatic co-polyesters have been researched widely and developed rapidly in recent years, since that can combine excellent biodegradability provided from aliphatic polyesters and good properties from aromatic polyesters. Out of which, poly (butylene-adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) shows the most importance. PBAT has been commercialized by polycondensation reaction of butanediol (BDO), adipic acid (AA) and terephthalic acid (PTA) using general polyester manufacturing technology. And it has been considered to have desirable properties and competitive costs to be applied in many fields. Therefore, this review aims to present an overview on the synthesis, properties and applications of PBAT.

An overview on synthesis, properties and applications of poly(butylene-adipate-co-terephthalate)–PBAT

Super toughened biodegradable polylactide blends with non-linear copolymer interfacial architecture obtained via facile in-situ reactive compatibilization

Influence of chain extender on mechanical, thermal and morphological properties of blown films of PLA/PBAT blends

Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) - PHBV is a biodegradable polyester which has been studied as an option for the production of disposable goods. Attapulgite is a fibrous clay mineral. The aim of this work was to produce and characterize renewable resource derived-nanocomposites based on PHBV and organophilic attapulgite (MAT). The nanocomposites were characterized by XRD, SEM and thermal analysis. It was observed reduction in degree of crystallinity, in melting and glass transition temperatures and in thermal stability of polymer due to the addition of clay to PHBV matrix. The best results were obtained for PHBV films containing 3 and 5% MAT. These films presented a slight increase in processing window and decrease in crystalline temperature and in degree of crystallinity as compared to pure PHBV.

/pdf/morphology-and-thermal-properties-of-poly-3-hydroxybutyrate-1d33n8dmdm.pdf

Liliane Cardoso Arruda

Papers

Influence of chain extender on mechanical, thermal and morphological properties of blown films of PLA/PBAT blends

Morphology and thermal properties of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate)/attapulgite nanocomposites