Novel tunable super-tough materials from biodegradable polymer blends: nano-structuring through reactive extrusion.

ABSTRACT: Structuring blends on sub-micrometer scales, especially nano-scales, has a higher potential for improving their thermomechanical properties. Here, we propose a design strategy to fabricate compatible nano-blends by manipulating the reactions between two biodegradable polymers, e.g. polybutylene succinate (PBS) and polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT), with extremely low free radical contents through reactive extrusion processing. Observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), it is found that PBAT is tightly surrounded by large amounts of PBS-PBAT co-polymers and dispersed in a PBS matrix with a particle size of less than 100 nm. We show how impact strength and polymer moduli can be improved simultaneously by decreasing the small amount of

SUBMITTER: Wu F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9060287 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature