Abstract
From environmental aspects, the recovery of keratin waste is one of the important needs and therefore also one of the current topics of many research groups. Here, the keratin hydrolysate after basic hydrolysis was used as a filler in plasticized polylactic acid/poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) blend under loading in the range of 1–20 wt%. The composites were characterized by infrared spectroscopy, and the effect of keratin on changes in molar masses of matrices during processing was investigated using gel permeation chromatography (GPC). Thermal properties of the composites were investigated using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The effect of keratin loading on the mechanical properties of composite was investigated by tensile test and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. Hydrolytic degradation of matrices and composites was investigated by the determination of extractable product amounts, GPC, DSC and NMR. Finally, microbial growth and degradation were investigated. It was found that incorporation of keratin in plasticized PLA/PHB blend provides material with good thermal and mechanical properties and improved degradation under common environmental conditions, indicating its possible application in agriculture and/or packaging.
Highlights
One of the most important environmental challenges is pollution by nondegradable plastics used as one-way material mainly from the area of packaging materials
polylactic acid (PLA)/PHB and PLA/PHB/acetyl tributyl citrate (ATBC), without keratin as model matrices were prepared by the same methodology
The addition of keratin did not significantly affect the thermal behavior of the plasticized PLA/PHB/ATBC blend, while a negligible additional plasticization effect was visible in the slight Tg decrease after keratin addition
Summary
One of the most important environmental challenges is pollution by nondegradable plastics used as one-way material mainly from the area of packaging materials. The problem becomes even more pronounced with partial disintegration of these plastics by UV radiation degradation, mechanical abrasion and biological degradation, which lead to the production of microplastics, which are harmful primarily due to their bioaccumulation and indirectly due to the toxic additives and microorganisms, adsorbed on the microplastics’. Aliphatic polyesters represented mainly by polylactic acid (PLA) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), already commercialized on a large scale, are the most attractive. They possess mainly the ability to undergo both hydrolytic degradation and biodegradation by soil microorganisms in compost [1], while their limited mechanical properties and processability can be improved by blending and/or additive addition. Due to a semicrystalline structure, the PLA and poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)
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