Highly-Toughened Polylactide- (PLA-) Based Ternary Blends with Significantly Enhanced Glass Transition and Melt Strength: Tailoring the Interfacial Interactions, Phase Morphology, and Performance

By M. Mehrabi Mazidi, Arman Edalat, R. Berahman, F. Hosseini. Macromolecules, 2018

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The inherent shortcomings of polylactide (PLA) including brittleness, low glass transition temperature, and melt strength during processing were addressed through a facile melt blending of PLA with polybutadiene-g-poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) (PB-g-SAN) core–shell impact modifier and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). Highly tough PLA-based ternary blends with drastically enhanced glass transition temperature (≈ 21 °C) and melt strength were successfully prepared. The effect of PMMA content (ranging from 0 to 30 wt %) on the phase miscibility, morphology, mechanical properties, thermal behavior, rheological properties, and toughening mechanisms of PLA/PB-g-SAN/PMMA blends with 30% PB-g-SAN was systematically investigated. It was found that PMMA can effectively tune the interfacial interactions, phase morphology and performance of incompatible PLA/PB-g-SAN blend owing to its partial miscibility with PLA matrix and miscibility with SAN shell of PB-g-SAN, as evidenced by DMTA analysis. Increase in PMMA cont...

Subfields: Biomaterials, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3c49fbfd1720bb825cac7f17e775b1b36f4f4484