TY - JOUR
T1 - Super toughened blends of poly(lactic acid) and poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) injection-molded foams via enhancing interfacial compatibility and cellular structure
AU - Wu, Minghui
AU - Ren, Qian
AU - Zhu, Xiuyu
AU - Li, Wanwan
AU - Luo, Haibin
AU - Wu, Fei
AU - Wang, Long
AU - Zheng, Wenge
AU - Cui, Ping
AU - Yi, Xiaosu
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2023/8/1
Y1 - 2023/8/1
N2 - Biodegradable poly(lactic acid) (PLA) foams have drawn increasing attention due to environmental challenges and petroleum crisis. However, it still remains a challenge to prepare PLA foams with fine cellular structures and high impact property, which significantly hinders its widespread application. Herein, phase interface-enhanced PLA/ poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) blend foam, modified by a reactive compatibilizer through a simple reactive extrusion, was produced via a core-back foam injection molding technique. The obtained PLA blend foams displayed an impact strength as high as 49.1 kJ/m2, which was 9.3 and 6.4 times that of the unmodified PLA/PBAT blend and its corresponding foam, respectively. It proved that the interfacial adhesion and cell size both strongly affected the impact strength of injection-molded PLA/PBAT foams, and two major conclusions were proposed. First, enhancing interfacial adhesion could cause a brittle-tough transition of PLA/PBAT foams. Additionally, for foams with high interfacial adhesion, small cell size (<12 μm) was more favorable for the stretching of cells and extension of the whitened region in comparison with big cell size (cell size >60 μm), leading to the drastic toughening of PLA blends. This study provides a feasible, industrially scalable and practical strategy to prepare super toughened and fully biodegradable PLA materials.
AB - Biodegradable poly(lactic acid) (PLA) foams have drawn increasing attention due to environmental challenges and petroleum crisis. However, it still remains a challenge to prepare PLA foams with fine cellular structures and high impact property, which significantly hinders its widespread application. Herein, phase interface-enhanced PLA/ poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) blend foam, modified by a reactive compatibilizer through a simple reactive extrusion, was produced via a core-back foam injection molding technique. The obtained PLA blend foams displayed an impact strength as high as 49.1 kJ/m2, which was 9.3 and 6.4 times that of the unmodified PLA/PBAT blend and its corresponding foam, respectively. It proved that the interfacial adhesion and cell size both strongly affected the impact strength of injection-molded PLA/PBAT foams, and two major conclusions were proposed. First, enhancing interfacial adhesion could cause a brittle-tough transition of PLA/PBAT foams. Additionally, for foams with high interfacial adhesion, small cell size (<12 μm) was more favorable for the stretching of cells and extension of the whitened region in comparison with big cell size (cell size >60 μm), leading to the drastic toughening of PLA blends. This study provides a feasible, industrially scalable and practical strategy to prepare super toughened and fully biodegradable PLA materials.
KW - PLA/PBAT foam
KW - Reactive compatibilization
KW - Super-tough
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85164240884
U2 - 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.125490
DO - 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.125490
M3 - Article
C2 - 37348589
AN - SCOPUS:85164240884
SN - 0141-8130
VL - 245
JO - International Journal of Biological Macromolecules
JF - International Journal of Biological Macromolecules
M1 - 125490
ER -