Recent advances in compatibility and toughness of poly(lactic acid)/poly(butylene succinate) blends

Xipo Zhao,Shaoxian Peng,Songting Yu,Hongyu Zhou,Dianfeng Zhang

doi:10.1515/epoly-2021-0072

Abstract

Abstract Poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) has good impact strength and high elongation at break. It is used to toughen biodegradable poly(lactic acid) (PLA) materials because it can considerably improve the toughness of PLA without changing the biodegradability of the materials. Therefore, this approach has become a hotspot in the field of biodegradable materials. A review of the physical and chemical modification methods that are applied to improve the performance of PLA/PBS blends based on recent studies is presented in this article. The improvement effect of PLA/PBS blends and the addition of some common fillers on the physical properties and crystallization properties of blends in the physical modification method are summarized briefly. The compatibilizing effects of nanofillers and compatibilizing agents necessary to improve the compatibility and toughness of PLA/PBS blends are described in detail. The chemical modification method involving the addition of reactive polymers and low-molecular-weight compounds to form cross-linked/branched structures at the phase interface during in situ reactions was introduced clearly. The addition of reactive compatibilizing components is an effective strategy to improve the compatibility between PLA and PBS components and further improve the mechanical properties and processing properties of the materials. It has high research value and wide application prospects in the modification of PLA. In addition, the degradation performance of PLA/PBS blends and the methods to improve the degradation performance were briefly summarized, and the development direction of PLA/PBS blends biodegradation performance research was prospected.

Highlights

In today’s world, green development has become the mainstream trend that is followed to address the environmental problems caused by white pollution
The cross-linking structure that resulted from the addition of dicumyl peroxide (DCP) and poly(butylene succinate) (PBS)-g-CNC greatly weakened the molecular chain mobility of the Poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/PBS matrix and increased the energy storage modulus and Tg of the PLA/PBS blends
Luzi et al [36] studied that PLA/PBS blends added with CNC and surfactant-modified CNC (s-CNC) reached a disintegration degree of more than 90% after 17 days of compost. s-CNC modified with hydrophilic surfactant increased its dispersity and accelerated PLA disintegration in compost soil

Summary

Introduction

PBS has good impact strength and high elongation at break [14,15] It is an ideal material for PLA modification because it toughens while maintaining PLA’s own strength and improving PLA’s crystallization performance [16]. PLA and PBS have incompatible two-phase thermodynamics and small interface bonding force, and PBS, when used as a dispersed phase size, has an excessively large size; these characteristics result in the lack of considerable improvement in the overall performance of the resulting blends [17]. The phase structure and dispersed phase size of PLA/PBS blends were adjusted by changing the proportion of blend components and processing parameters. The types of the third blending component can be divided into special compatibilizers, nanofillers, and other kinds of packing

Compatibilizers

Other fillers

Findings

Conclusion