Elastomer-toughened PLA has incubated plenty outstanding achievements. Principally, increasing elastomer content will immolate vast rigidity in exchange for toughness. In this work, silane coupler KH550-treated SiO 2 and ENR were used to synergistically enhance and toughen PLA via dynamic vulcanization. It is found that the PLA/ENR/SiO 2 TPV with balanced stiffness and toughness exhibited a bicontinuous phase structure. Thereinto, the hydrophobic SiO 2 nanoparticles were regulated to uniformly disperse in the ENR phase, which played an essential role in reinforcing the rubber and bracing the symmetrical rubber network, so as to toughen the PLA with retaining high stiffness at an acceptable plastic-to-rubber ratio. By incorporating nano-SiO 2 modified with 10 phr KH550, the TPV could obtain an impact strength of 23.7 kJ/m 2 at 0 C while maintain a tensile strength of 42.1 MPa, which were 1.62-fold and 1.03-fold of those before modification, respectively. The synergistic enhancing and toughening mechanism of nano-SiO 2 and ENR was revealed through a series of test and analysis, which furnished a succinct and effective proposition of fabricating high-performance PLA materials.
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