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Rheological, mechanical and morphological behavior of polylactide/nano-sized calcium carbonate composites

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Abstract

Semicrystalline polylactide (PLA) is a promising material to replace petroleum-based plastics since it can be synthesized from renewable resources. PLA exhibits high tensile strength and modulus, but very low strain-at-break and toughness. In this study, the effects of the nano-sized calcium carbonate (nCaCO3) on the rheological, mechanical and morphological properties of polylactide are evaluated. The PLA/nCaCO3 composites with different filler compositions, as well as neat PLA (used as reference) were prepared by melt mixing in a twin-screw extruder. The results show that the presence of 7.0 wt% of nCaCO3 in the composite not only produced an ultimate strain improvement, but also better overall toughness balance in comparison to the other compositions. MEV micrographs showed the presence of microvoids with composition containing 7.0 wt% nCaCO3, which explains the mentioned mechanical behavior. This composition also showed more viscous behavior in relation to neat PLA and 5.0 wt% nCaCO3 composite. Composite with 3 wt% of nanofiller presented the highest viscous behavior in relation to neat PLA and other composites. Both mechanical data and Cole–Cole plots indicated the overall absence of higher filler aggregates in the composites analyzed, corroborating the MEV micrographs.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge financial support by CAPES. We are also grateful to NatureWorks and Nanomaterials Technology for supplying the PLA and nCaCO3, respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Macromoléculas Professora Eloisa Mano-IMA/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, 21945-970, Brazil

    Janaina Fernandes Moreno de Almeida, Ana Lúcia Nazareth da Silva & Viviane Alves Escócio

  2. Escola de Engenharia-UFF, Niterói, 24210-240, Brazil

    Antônio Henrique Monteiro da Fonseca Thomé da Silva

  3. Instituto de Química-IQ/UERJ, Rio de Janeiro, 20550-013, Brazil

    Ana Maria Furtado de Sousa

  4. Programa de Engenharia Metalúrgica-PEMM/COPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, 21941-908, Brazil

    Christine Rabello Nascimento

  5. Centro de Tecnologia Mineral-CETEM, Rio de Janeiro, 21941-908, Brazil

    Luiz Carlos Bertolino

Authors
  1. Janaina Fernandes Moreno de Almeida
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  2. Ana Lúcia Nazareth da Silva
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  3. Viviane Alves Escócio
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  4. Antônio Henrique Monteiro da Fonseca Thomé da Silva
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  5. Ana Maria Furtado de Sousa
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  6. Christine Rabello Nascimento
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  7. Luiz Carlos Bertolino
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ana Lúcia Nazareth da Silva.

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de Almeida, J.F.M., da Silva, A.L.N., Escócio, V.A. et al. Rheological, mechanical and morphological behavior of polylactide/nano-sized calcium carbonate composites. Polym. Bull. 73, 3531–3545 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-016-1656-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-016-1656-9

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