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Tunable and Durable Toughening of Polylactide Materials Via Reactive Extrusion
Author(s) -
Kfoury Georgio,
Hassouna Fatima,
Raquez JeanMarie,
Toniazzo Valérie,
Ruch David,
Dubois Philippe
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
macromolecular materials and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1439-2054
pISSN - 1438-7492
DOI - 10.1002/mame.201300265
Subject(s) - reactive extrusion , materials science , glass transition , acrylate , plasticizer , peg ratio , toughness , polymer chemistry , dynamic mechanical analysis , extrusion , toughening , polymer , composite material , copolymer , finance , economics
To tune the toughness of PLA, a novel pathway to chemically modify PLA via reactive extrusion in the presence of “reactive” PEG derivatives is proposed. PEG methyl ether methacrylate (MAPEG) and PEG methyl ether acrylate (AcrylPEG) are melt‐mixed and extruded with PLA in the presence of 2,5‐dimethyl‐2,5‐di( tert‐ butylperoxy)hexane (L101) as a free‐radical initiator. Molecular characterization reveals that about 20 and 65%, respectively, of the initially introduced MAPEG and AcrylPEG can be grafted onto the PLA backbone. The plasticization effect is demonstrated by a significant decrease of the glass transition temperature and storage modulus together with a significant increase of the elongation at break as compared to neat PLA.