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Mechanical properties, thermal behavior, miscibility and light stability of the poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate)/poly(propylene carbonate)/polylactide mulch films

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Abstract

Poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) copolyester, which has good processing properties, is a new biodegradable synthetic polymer material in recent years. However, it is not satisfied with the mulch requirements because of its high cost and low mechanical strength. The mulch films of ternary blends including PBAT, polylactide (PLA), and poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC) are successfully prepared by extrusion blending and film blowing. The effect of different blow-up ratios (BUR) on the mechanical of mulch films was investigated. The 64/20/16 wt% PBAT/PPC/PLA mulch film of 3.1 BUR shows good mechanical properties. The tensile strength is as high as 43.0/37.6 MPa (MD/TD) while the elongation at break reaches 160/450% (MD/TD). The addition of PLA improves the strength of the mulch film, and the addition of PPC improves the barrier performance of the mulch film. It demonstrates that the PBAT, PPC, and PLA have partial compatibility from DMA and DSC analysis. After adding high-efficiency hindered amine light stabilizers, the mulch films have good light stability and their elongation at the break still exceeds 100% after 100 h of UV irradiation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Development Plan of Jilin Province (20210203199SF), Science and Technology Services Network Program of Chinese Science Academy (No. KFJ-STS-ZDTP-082), Chinese Science Academy (Changchun Branch) (No. 2020SYHZ0002 and No. 2020SYHZ0047), and the National Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China (No. LQY19B040001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Changchun, 130022, China

    Xiangyu Wang, Hongwei Pan, Shiling Jia, Zifeng Lu, Lijing Han & Huiliang Zhang

  2. University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China

    Xiangyu Wang, Zifeng Lu & Huiliang Zhang

  3. Zhejiang Zhongke Applied Chemistry Technology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, 310000, China

    Huiliang Zhang

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  1. Xiangyu Wang
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  3. Shiling Jia
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Correspondence to Lijing Han or Huiliang Zhang.

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Wang, X., Pan, H., Jia, S. et al. Mechanical properties, thermal behavior, miscibility and light stability of the poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate)/poly(propylene carbonate)/polylactide mulch films. Polym. Bull. 80, 2485–2501 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-022-04173-7

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