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Production and characterization of sustainable poly(lactic acid)/functionalized-eggshell composites plasticized by epoxidized soybean oil

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Abstract

To improve the intrinsic brittleness and crystallization capacity of poly(lactic acid) (PLA), fully sustainable PLA composites were prepared. The biodegradable PLA composites consisted of 10 wt% epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) and different amounts of functional eggshell (FES) with surface modified with calcium phenylphosphonate (PPCa) were prepared by melt blending. Mechanical and crystallization behavior were studied in terms of the weight percentage of FES. ESO-plasticized PLA showed an excellent tensile toughness with the elongation at break increased over than 160% compared to 6% of pure PLA. The elongation at break for PLA composites was still higher than 70% even filled with 30 wt% FES. Besides, the tensile and storage moduli of PLA/ESO/FES composites did not suffer significant deterioration as compared with pure PLA. For cold crystallization behavior, FES with surface modified by PPCa as a good nucleating agent improved the nucleating ability of PLA. The rates of nonisothermal and isothermal cold crystallization of PLA were improved due to the synergistic effect of plasticization and nucleation. The nonisothermal cold crystallization peak temperature (Tcc) of PLA composites decreases considerably from 118.7 °C (for pure PLA) to 90 °C. The crystallization half-time of PLA composites is lower than 10 min compared with 162 min of pure PLA after isothermal crystallized at 75 °C. As a consequence, it is encouraging that ESO and FES exhibit great viability for modifying the mechanical and crystallization properties of PLA matrix, which make PLA a promising sustainable alternative to petroleum-based polymers in conventional fields.

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Abbreviations

PLA:

Poly(lactic acid)

ESO:

Epoxidized soybean oil

FES:

Functional eggshell

PPCa:

Calcium phenylphosphonate

PDLA:

Poly(d-lactic acid)

PEG:

Polyethylene glycol

PPG:

Poly(propylene glycol)

SEM:

Field-emission scanning electron microscopy

DMA:

Dynamic mechanical analysis

DSC:

Differential scanning calorimeter

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Cooperation of Hubei Province and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jilin Province Science and Technology Agency (20160204030GX); the Changchun Municipal Scientific and Technologic Development (16SS16), and Building of Innovation Team Plan (IG201703N).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 5625 Renmin Street, Changchun, 130022, China

    Junjun Kong, Changyu Han, Yancun Yu & Lisong Dong

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100049, China

    Junjun Kong

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  1. Junjun Kong
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  2. Changyu Han
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  3. Yancun Yu
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  4. Lisong Dong
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Correspondence to Changyu Han or Yancun Yu.

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Kong, J., Han, C., Yu, Y. et al. Production and characterization of sustainable poly(lactic acid)/functionalized-eggshell composites plasticized by epoxidized soybean oil. J Mater Sci 53, 14386–14397 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-018-2656-y

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