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Dynamically vulcanized polylactic acid/natural rubber/waste rubber blends: effect of the rubber content

  • Polymers & biopolymers
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Abstract

The reduction in the production of conventional polymers based on crude oil by using bio-based plastics and by valorizing rubber wastes is an essential route to reverse the negative impact of the polymer industry on the environment. To contribute to this challenge, we prepared polylactic acid (PLA)/natural rubber (NR)/ground tyre rubber (GTR) blends via dynamic vulcanization. The PLA/NR/GTR blends with a rubber content and above 30 wt% show a continuous rubber phase (NR/GTR) where the GTR particles are encapsulated into the NR matrix as shown by dissolution experiment in dichloromethane and microscopy images on etched samples. PLA/NR/GTR blends with 30 wt% of rubber show a tensile modulus of 1.3 GPa, a tensile toughness of 8.3 MJ m−3 and an impact strength of 260 kJ m−2 higher than 1.1 GPa, 4.2 MJ m−3 and 160 kJ m−2, respectively, for the binary PLA/NR blend. The presence of reinforcing carbon black particles in the GTR as well as their partially vulcanized state of the GTR before dynamic vulcanization may result in a higher cross-linking level of the rubber phase in the ternary blends as compared to binary blends that likely contribute to concomitantly improve tensile modulus, toughness and impact tensile strength.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 712949 (TECNIOspring PLUS) and from the Agency for Business Competitiveness of the Government of Catalonia as well as the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación for the Project PID2019-1006518RB-I00.

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  1. Departament de Ciència i Enginyeria de Materials, Centre Català del Plàstic, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BARCELONATECH. Avda. Eduard Maristany 16, 08019, Barcelona, Spain

    Nicolas Candau, Noel León Albiter, Hector Jeannot & Maria Lluïsa Maspoch Ruldua

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NC was responsible for conceptualization and writing the original draft; NC, NLA and HJ were involved in data curation and software; NC and MLM acquired the funding and carried out supervision; NC, HJ and MLM conducted the investigation; and NC, NLA, HJ and MLM took part in methodology, visualization and writing—reviewing and editing.

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Correspondence to Nicolas Candau.

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Candau, N., León Albiter, N., Jeannot, H. et al. Dynamically vulcanized polylactic acid/natural rubber/waste rubber blends: effect of the rubber content. J Mater Sci 57, 17902–17919 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-022-07795-4

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