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Improvement in toughness of polylactide by melt blending with bio-based poly(ester)urethane

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Abstract

Polylactide (PLA) was successfully toughened by blending with bio-based poly(ester)urethane (TPU) elastomers which contained bio-based polyester soft segments synthesized from biomass diols and diacids. The miscibility, mechanical properties, phase morphology and toughening mechanism of the blend were investigated. Both DSC and DMTA results manifested that the addition of TPU elastomer not only accelerated the crystallization rate, but also increased the final degree of crystallinity, which proved that TPU has limited miscibility with PLA and has functioned as a plasticizer. All the blend samples showed distinct phase separation phenomenon with sea-island structure under SEM observation and the rubber particle size in the PLA matrix increased with the increased contents of TPU. The mechanical property variation of PLA/TPU blends could be quantitatively explained by Wu’s model. With the variation of TPU, a brittle-ductile transition has been observed for the TPU/PLA blends. When these blends were under tensile stress conditions, the TPU particles could be debonded from the PLA matrix and the blends showed a high ability to induce large area plastic deformation before break, which was important for the dissipation of the breaking energy. Such mechanism was demonstrated by tensile tests and scanning electron microcopy (SEM) observations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials and Chemical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Rui-lei Yu & Yu-hong Feng  (冯玉红)

  2. Ningbo Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials, Ningbo Institute of Material Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China

    Rui-lei Yu, Li-sheng Zhang, Ruo-yu Zhang  (张若愚) & Jin Zhu

Authors
  1. Rui-lei Yu
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  2. Li-sheng Zhang
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  3. Yu-hong Feng  (冯玉红)
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  4. Ruo-yu Zhang  (张若愚)
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  5. Jin Zhu
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yu-hong Feng  (冯玉红) or Ruo-yu Zhang  (张若愚).

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Yu, Rl., Zhang, Ls., Feng, Yh. et al. Improvement in toughness of polylactide by melt blending with bio-based poly(ester)urethane. Chin J Polym Sci 32, 1099–1110 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-014-1487-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-014-1487-9

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