Soil Biodegradation of PLA/CNW Nanocomposites Modified with Ethylene Oxide Derivatives

Abstract

Due to its ester bonds, poly(lactic acid) (PLA) undergoes biodegradation in humid environments, attracting market attention. The goal of this work was to observe the biodegradation in garden soil of PLA nanocomposites with neat (PLA/CNW) and surfactant modified cellulose nanowhiskers (PLA/ CNW/S). Three types of surfactants were tested: poly(ethylene glycol) monooleate (PEGMONO) and poly(ethylene glycol) with molecular weight of 300 and 1000 Da. The films were obtained by solution casting, cut in strips of (2x2) cm and buried in garden soil, monitoring the temperature and humidity. After 90, 120 and 150 days changes were observed in the films by visual inspection, polarized light microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). The results showed that the addition of surfactant favored the biodegradation of nanocomposites and that PLA/CNW/PEG1000 showed the fastest biodegradation rate.

Thermal Analysis of Aliphatic Polyester Blends with Natural Antioxidants

“…changes in the absorbance did not occur significantly. A similar phenomenon is observed in the case of -C=O (1748 cm −1 ) and -CH 3 (1451 cm −1 ) [31,32]. This means that only lignin reveals such stabilizing effect on surface PLA/P(3.4 HB) blend.…”

“…The number of used scans amounted to 64 at a resolution of Polymers 2020, 12, 74 5 of 16 4 cm −1 . In this research the structural changes of tested materials which occurred as a result of ageing processes were investigated by the difference of the peak intensity at 1748 cm −1 and the reference peak at 1451 cm −1 [31]. The comparison of -C-O (1187cm −1 ) and -C=O (1748 cm −1 ) absorbance was also determined [31,32].…”

“…The -C-O (1187 cm −1 ) stretching band in PLA/P(3.4 HB) [31] is sensitive to solar aging process. which is observable in the Figure 6 During the solar aging.…”

Influence of the Chitosan and Rosemary Extract on Fungal Biodegradation of Some Plasticized PLA-Based Materials

“…It is known that native PLA has a slow rate of disintegration and the microorganisms that degrade PLA are rarely found in nature [37]. Among the tested samples, the native PLA showed the lowest degradation rate, only 22% weight loss was found after 14 days of exposure to Chaetomium globosum.…”

A Short Review on the Effect of Surfactants on the Mechanico-Thermal Properties of Polymer Nanocomposites

“…Synthetic polymers (examples are displayed in Table 1) are frequently utilized for the creation of polymer nanocomposites, including HDPE [1], PP [2], PS [3,4], DGEBA [5][6][7], PEVA [8,9], PBO [10], SR [11], PAN [12], PUA [13], etc. Synthetic biodegradable polymers (examples are also displayed in Table 1), such as PLA [14][15][16][17][18], PBAT [19], PBS [20], PVA [21], PCL [22], etc., are also utilized for nanocomposite preparation. On the other hand, nanofillers (examples are displayed in Table 2), such as MMT [2,9,12,20], Ag NPs [17,18], ZnO NPs [15], TiO 2 NRs [3], CNTs [10,23,24], CNFs [5,25,26], G NPs [11,13,23], GO NSs [6,27], LDHs [22], and HNTs [4], are used in the fabrication of polymer nanocomposites, as they possess a high aspect ...…”