Effects of Catalytic Transesterification and Composition on the Toughness of Poly(lactic acid)/Poly(propylene carbonate) Blends

Abstract

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and maleic acid anhydride end-capped poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC-MA) were melt blended with or without transesterification catalyst tetrabutyl titanate (TBT). The gel permeation chromatography (GPC), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results indicated that the addition of TBT promoted the transesterification and the transesterification degree increased with increasing the TBT content. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) photographs showed that the PLA/PPC-MA/TBT could be plastic stretched deeply under tensile stress. Moreover, PPC-MA was more active than PLA in the catalytic transesterification and the weight percent of PPC-MA had obvious effects on the mechanical properties of the blends. The tensile toughness of PLA/PPC-MA blends was significantly improved with the addition of TBT when the PPC-MA content was higher than 50 wt %.

Biodegradable compatibilized polymer blends for packaging applications: A literature review

“…Commercially available PPC was end‐capped with MA (PPC‐MA) by Zhou et al . to minimize the thermal degradation at 180 °C, and was then melt blended with PLA and Ti(OBu) 4 catalyst.…”

Sustainable biobased blends of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and poly(glycerol succinate-co-maleate) (PGSMA) with balanced performance prepared by dynamic vulcanization

“…In this regard, toughening of PLA aiming to increase its elongation at break and/or impact resistance has been a major research subject for the last decade. Successful toughening of PLA has been achieved by several strategies such as plasticization, [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] modication of PLA chemical structure by graing, [10][11][12] introduction of pores into PLA materials, 13 melt blending with rubbers [14][15][16][17][18] and polymers, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] melt blending transesterication [27][28][29][30][31] and dynamic vulcanization with reactive elastomers. [32][33][34][35][36][37] Among these alternatives, those involving melt blending like plasticization, rubber toughening and dynamic vulcanization offer advantages in terms of scalability, cost and environmental friendliness.…”

Compatibilization of the poly(lactic acid)/poly(propylene carbonate) blends through in situ formation of poly(lactic acid)‐b‐poly(propylene carbonate) copolymer

“…It was noted that a triple peaks from 154.28 to 154.18 ppm nearly 154.69 ppm of carbonyl groups for PPC was assigned to the carbonyl groups of PLA-b-PPC copolymer generated during the transesterification in the work of Zhou et al 29 Actually, the multiple peaks closed to peak a (the carbonyl signal of PPC) can be found in all reaction samples even pure PPC as Figure 2(b,c). Apart from the multiple of peak a, the peaks b, c, and d of PPC nearly presented doublet from Figure 2(c), which was possibly because of the sequential structure of PPC in nature.…”

“…Several studies had investigated the transesterification of PLA and another polymer. Very recently, Zhou et al . firstly elucidated the transesterification between PLA and PPC end‐capped with MA (PPC‐MA) during reactive melt compounding in the presence of TBT.…”

“…Several studies [26][27][28] had investigated the transesterification of PLA and another polymer. Very recently, Zhou et al 29 firstly elucidated the transesterification between PLA and PPC end-capped with MA (PPC-MA) during reactive melt compounding in the presence of TBT. Results indicated that the elongation at break of PLA/PPC-MA blends was greatly increased with the addition of TBT when the PPC-MA content was higher than 50 wt %.…”