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Miscibility and toughness improvement of poly(lactic acid)/poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate) blends using a melt-induced degradation approach

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Abstract

Biodegradable polymer blends of high-molecular-weight poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and poly(lactic acid) (PLA) are not miscible in general. Yet, by decreasing the molecular weight of PHB, the low-molecular-weight PHB could have improved miscibility with the PLA. In this study, a melt-induced degradation process of PLA/PHB blends was therefore implemented, termed the in-situ self-compatibilization approach, to produce low-molecular-weight PHB during melt blending process. The solution blends of PLA and oligomer PHB (PLA/OPHB) were also prepared as a basis to understand the role of low-molecular-weight PHB to improve its miscibility with PLA in PLA/PHB blends. Only one single glass transition temperature (Tg) was found for the resulting PLA/PHB blends at compositions of 95/05 to 80/20, proving that the miscibility was greatly improved by decreasing molecular weight of PHB. Because the degraded PHB had a relatively lower Tg, it thus provided plasticization effect to the PLA and resulted in the decreased crystallization temperature. Moreover, with increasing PHB content to 20% in the blend, the elongation at break increased significantly from 7.2% to 227%, more than 30-fold. The extensive shear yielding and necking behavior were observed during tensile testing for the blend of 80/20. The localized plasticization within PLA/PHB matrix with the reduction of local yield stress and the well-dispersed PHB crystallites were the major contributing factors to trigger shear yielding phenomenon. Moreover, initial modulus decreased only 20%, from 1.68 to 1.35 GPa. A common problem of severely reduced stiffness from the added plasticizer encountered in the plasticized PLA blends was therefore not perceived here.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) in Taiwan for financial support under the contract number NSC 101-2221-E-032-002-MY3.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National I-Lan University, I-Lan 260, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Sun-Mou Lai

  2. Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Tamkang University, New Taipei City 251, 25137, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Yi-Hsun Liu, Chao-Tsai Huang & Trong-Ming Don

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  1. Sun-Mou Lai
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  2. Yi-Hsun Liu
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  4. Trong-Ming Don
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Correspondence to Trong-Ming Don.

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Lai, SM., Liu, YH., Huang, CT. et al. Miscibility and toughness improvement of poly(lactic acid)/poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate) blends using a melt-induced degradation approach. J Polym Res 24, 102 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-017-1253-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10965-017-1253-0

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