IVORRA MARTINEZ, JUAN, Angel Peydro, Miguel , Gomez-Caturla, Jaume , Boronat, Teodomiro , Balart, Rafa
No
Macromol. Mater. Eng.
Article
Científica
2
1
3.9
0.743
01/12/2022
000845083400001
This work reports on the use of dibutyl itaconate (DBI) as an environmentally friendly plasticizer for polylactide (PLA) with different proportions of DBI in the 2.5-20 wt% (weight content) range. A co-rotating twin-screw extrusion process followed by injection molding is employed for the manufacturing of the samples. The results show that the plasticized PLA formulation with 10 wt% DBI offers the most balanced overall properties, with a noticeable increase in the elongation at break from 4.6% (neat PLA) up to 322%, with a tensile modulus of 1572 MPa, and a tensile strength of 23.8 MPa. In the case of 15 and 20 wt% DBI formulations, PLA reaches the saturation point with no more increase in the elongation at break and a clear decrease in the tensile modulus. DBI also decreases the glass transition temperature (T-g) from 61.3 degrees C (neat PLA) down to 23.4 degrees C for plasticized PLA formulation containing 20 wt% DBI, thus showing the high plasticization efficiency of DBI.
biobased materials; dibutyl itaconate; injection molding; plasticizers; polylactide