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New approach to the double melting peak of poly(l-lactic acid) observed by DSC

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Abstract

Poly(l-lactic acid) (PLLA) is one of the most studied biopolymers nowadays. Due to its good performance, it constitutes an alternative to petrochemical-derived polymers. It was largely studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and temperature-modulated DSC. Nevertheless, there is an ongoing debate of what happens at the overlapping melting processes. In the present work, the experimental setups are discussed. Different modulation conditions are proposed for the study of the glass transition, cold crystallization, and the two reported melting processes. Finally, the experimental results allowed to measure the heat capacity change at the cold crystallization and a correct interpretation of what happens at the reported double melting peak of PLLA, which involves the existence of three crystalline structures.

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Acknowledgment

This work was partially funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion y Ciencia MTM2008-00166 and MAT2010-21342-C02-01.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thermal Analysis, Rheology and Microcalorimetry Applications, TA Instruments–Waters Cromatografía, 28108, Alcobendas Madrid, Spain

    Carlos A. Gracia-Fernández

  2. Department of Applied Physics, CESUGA, University College of Dublin, 15190, A Coruña, Spain

    Silvia Gómez-Barreiro

  3. University of A Coruña, Higher Polytechnic School, Campus de Esteiro, Ferrol, 15403, Spain

    Jorge López-Beceiro, Salvador Naya & Ramón Artiaga

Authors
  1. Carlos A. Gracia-Fernández
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  2. Silvia Gómez-Barreiro
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  3. Jorge López-Beceiro
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  4. Salvador Naya
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  5. Ramón Artiaga
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Correspondence to Ramón Artiaga.

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Gracia-Fernández, C.A., Gómez-Barreiro, S., López-Beceiro, J. et al. New approach to the double melting peak of poly(l-lactic acid) observed by DSC. Journal of Materials Research 27, 1379–1382 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2012.57

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2012.57

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