Construction of fully biodegradable poly(L-lactic acid)/poly(D-lactic acid)-poly(lactide-co-caprolactone) block polymer films: Viscoelasticity, processability and flexibility

Abstract

Development of biodegradable polymer films is essential for sustainable energy conservation and ecological protection. In this work, to improve the processability and toughness of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) films, poly(lactide-co-caprolactone) (PLCL) segments were introduced into poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA)/poly(D-lactic acid) (PDLA) chains via chain branching reactions during reactive processing, and fully biodegradable/flexible PLLA/D-PLCL block polymer with long-chain branches and stereocomplex (SC) crystalline structure was prepared. Compared with neat PLLA, PLLA/D-PLCL exhibited much higher complex viscosity/storage modulus, lower tanδ values in terminal region and obvious strain-hardening behavior. Through biaxial drawing, PLLA/D-PLCL films were prepared, which showed improved uniformity and non-preferred orientation. With increasing draw ratio, the total crystallinity (Xc) and Xc for SC crystal both increased. By introduction of PDLA, the two phases of PLLA and PLCL penetrated and entangled with each other, and the phase structure transformed from “sea-island” structure to “co-continuous network” structure, which was beneficial for exerting the toughening effect of flexible PLCL molecules on PLA matrix. The tensile strength and elongation at break of PLLA/D-PLCL films increased from 51.87 MPa and 28.22 % of neat PLLA film to 70.82 MPa and 148.28 %. This work provided a new strategy for developing fully biodegradable polymer films with high performance.