Preparation and performance of super toughened and high heat-resistant biodegradable PLA/PBAT blends

Abstract

Super toughened and high heat-resistant poly (lactic acid) (PLA)/poly (butylene-adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) blends were synergistically prepared by compounding pre-prepared polyborosiloxane gel (PBSG) and multicomponent epoxy chain extender (ADR) with further heat-treatment. The effects of PBSG content on the performance and microstructure of the blends were investigated. The impact strength of the blends without heat treatment increased with the increase of PBSG content. After heat treatment, the impact strength of the blends showed a tendency of first increasing and then decreasing with the increase of PBSG content, and the maximum impact strength of the blends before and after the heat treatment was 56.51 kJ/m2 and 46.08 kJ/m2, respectively. The heat treatment could greatly improve the vicat soft temperature and thermo-mechanical properties of the blends. After the heat treatment, the vicat soft temperature of all the blends exceeded 150 °C, and the storage modulus of all the blends exceeded 100 MPa, and the annealed PLA blend beard a 20 g weight could kept at 100 °C for 12 h with negligible deformation, which attributed to the improvement of the interface properties and the crystallization properties.