Tensile Property Balanced and Gas Barrier Improved Poly(lactic acid) by Blending with Biobased Poly(butylene 2,5-furan dicarboxylate)

Abstract

A biobased poly(butylene 2,5-furan dicarboxylate) (PBF) is synthesized and blended with poly(lactic acid) (PLA). With only 5 wt % addition of PBF, the elongation at break of PLA becomes 18.5 times more than before, while the tensile modulus and tensile strength at yield keep almost the same. Morphological analysis based on scanning electron microscope pictures shows drastic shape deformation of PBF dispersed phases from sphere to fibril. The elongation ratio of PBF phase is much larger than that of PLA matrix, which is caused by a possible "plastic-rubber" transition in PBF during stretch process. On the other hand, stretch induced crystallization in PBF happened and it may increase the modulus of PBF along the tensile direction. Probably with the above two phenomena, PLA is dynamically toughened and strengthened in the elongation procedure. Moreover, the impact strength of the blends is better than those of the two pure components, and rubber-plastic transition and crystallization of PBF could improve the impact toughness too. The gas barrier property of PLA/PBF blends is also significantly enhanced by the introduction of a furan ring. It can be concluded that PLA/PBF blends are a good base material with great potential for future development in different areas.

Block Copolyesters Containing 2,5-Furan and trans-1,4-Cyclohexane Subunits with Outstanding Gas Barrier Properties

“…Indeed, 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) can be derived from 5-Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), in turn obtained from sugars and polysaccharides [5]. The latest developments in FDCA synthesis [6,7,8] have led to the production of numerous FDCA-based polyesters such as poly(ethylene 2,5-furandicarboxylate) (PEF) [9,10,11,12,13], poly(propylene 2,5-furandicarboxylate) (PPF) [14,15,16], poly(butylene 2,5-furandicarboxylate) (PBF) [17,18,19,20,21], to cite the most important examples, and others including some FDCA-based copolyesters and nanocomposites [22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39]. Poly(ethylene 2,5-furandicarboxylate) (PEF) represents a very promising solution, particularly as a substitute of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), owing to very similar physic/mechanical properties.…”

“…Specifically, a 11×, 19×, and 2.1× lowering of O 2 , CO 2 , and water permeability, respectively, has been observed for amorphous PEF with respect to amorphous PET [40,41,42]. Barrier properties of PPF [14,16], PBF [20,34,36,37], poly(pentamethylene furanoate) (PPentF) [43], and poly(neopenthyl glycol furanoate) (PNF) [44] have also been recently investigated in order to evaluate their potential for food packaging applications.…”

Sustainable Polymers from Renewable Resources: Polymer Blends of Furan‐Based Polyesters

“…There exist few studies on copolymers and nanocomposites based on PEF, PPF, and PBF, as well as a few PAFs . Surprisingly, blends of these compounds attracted much less attention (to the best of our knowledge, only two studies reported on PBF/PLA blends).…”

Recyclable bio‐based crosslinked polyurethanes with self‐healing ability

“…It could be degraded into small molecules in the body, and then broken down into water and CO 2 , which could be excreted through metabolism . However, the brittle nature of high molecular weight (MW) PLA limits some applications where mechanical toughness is required . In our previous work, we focused on the controlled synthesis of low MW PLA polyols with various structure and their use as platform chemicals for PU synthesis .…”