Polymorphic Behavior and Enzymatic Degradation of Poly(butylene adipate) in the Presence of Hexagonal Boron Nitride Nanosheets

Abstract

Hexagonal boron nitride nanosheets (BNNSs) were prepared by a facile chemical exfoliation method. Then cosolution film casting method was used to obtain poly(butylene adipate) (PBA)/BNNSs nanocomposites. The incorporated BNNSs changed the formation condition of the polymorphic crystals of PBA. The results of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) showed that BNNSs significantly facilitated the formation of α-form crystals for isothermal and nonisothermal crystallization. Compared to pure PBA at 28 °C, the α-form crystals would not disappear until the temperature decreased to 13 °C with the addition of 0.5 wt % BNNSs. In addition, the excellent heterogeneous nucleation ability of BNNSs was identified by the nonisothermal and isothermal crystallization process. The enzymatic degradation experiments exhibited that PBA/BNNSs nanocomposites possessed a considerably lower degradation rate than neat PBA. This work demonstrates that BNNSs is an efficient material to regulate the formation of polymorphic crystals and the degradation behavior of PBA.