Authors
Natacha Bitinis, Raquel Verdejo, Philippe Cassagnau, Miguel A López-Manchado
Publication date
2011/10/3
Journal
Materials Chemistry and Physics
Volume
129
Issue
3
Pages
823-831
Publisher
Elsevier
Description
Polylactide, PLA, is a biodegradable thermoplastic polyester derived from biomass that has restricted packaging applications due to its high brittleness and poor crystallisation behaviour. Here, new formulations based on natural rubber–PLA blends have been developed. The processing windows, temperature, time, and rotor rate, and the rubber content have been optimised in order to obtain a blend with useful properties. The rubber phase was uniformly dispersed in the continuous PLA matrix with a droplet size range from 1.1 to 2.0μm. The ductility of PLA has been significantly improved by blending with natural rubber, NR. The elongation at break improved from 5% for neat PLA to 200% by adding 10wt% NR. In addition, the incorporation of NR not only increased the crystallisation rate but also enhanced the crystallisation ability of PLA. These materials are, therefore, very promising for industrial applications.
Total citations
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Scholar articles
N Bitinis, R Verdejo, P Cassagnau… - Materials Chemistry and Physics, 2011