Effects of polymer concentration and zone drawing on the structure and properties of biodegradable poly(butylene succinate) film

Abstract

To produce various biodegradable poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) films for particular use, the effects of initial polymer concentration and zone drawing on the structure, physical properties, and hydrolytic degradation of PBS film were investigated. PBS films were prepared from chloroform solutions with different initial concentrations of 8, 11, 14, 17 and 20g/dl. In order to investigate the drawing behavior of the PBS films with different solution concentrations, the films were drawn under various zone drawing conditions. Through a series of experiments, it turned out that the initial concentration of PBS solution in chloroform caused significant changes in the draw ratio of the PBS film. That is, the zone draw ratios of the film at initial concentration of 14g/dl exhibited its maximum values and gradually decreased at higher or lower concentrations. Thus, it was concluded that the initial concentration of 14g/dl is the optimum polymer concentration to produce maximum draw ratio in this work. In addition, the crystal and amorphous orientations and tensile properties of PBS film having similar draw ratio and similar crystallinity were highest at 14g/dl and surface crystal morphologies of these films were absolutely different. The hydrolytic degradation rate of the film at 14g/dl was lowest, but with similar draw ratio, film dimension, and crystallinity, indicating that the degradation behaviors were greatly affected by the initial polymer concentration, orientation, and crystal morphology.