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Sustainable Blends of Poly(propylene carbonate) and Stereocomplex Polylactide with Enhanced Rheological Properties and Heat Resistance

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Abstract

Sustainable blends of poly(propylene carbonate) (PPC) and stereocomplex polylactide (sc-PLA) were prepared by melt blending equimolar poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) and poly(D-lactide acid) (PDLA) with PPC to form sc-PLA crystals in situ in the melt blending process. Differential scanning calorimetry analysis revealed that only sc-PLA, no homo-crystallization of PLLA or PDLA, formed in the PPC matrix as the sc-PLA content was more than 10 wt%. Very intriguingly, scanning electronic microscopy observation showed that sc-PLA was evenly dispersed in the PPC phase as spherical particles and the sizes of sc-PLA particles did not obviously increase with increasing sc-PLA content. As a consequence, the rheological properties of PPC were greatly improved by incorporation of sc-PLA. When the sc-PLA content was 20 wt%, a percolation network structure was formed, and the blends showed solid-like behavior. The sc-PLA particles could reinforce the PPC matrix, especially at a temperature above the glass transition temperature of PPC. Moreover, the Vicat softening temperature of PPC/sc-PLA blends could be increased compared with that of neat PPC.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Chinese Academy of science and technology service network planning (No. KFJ-STS-QYZD-140), a program of Cooperation of Hubei Province and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Innovation team project of Beijing Institute of Science and Technology (No. IG201703N) and “13th five-year” Science and Technology Research Program of the Education Department of Jilin Province (No. JJKH20190862KJ).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin Jianzhu University, Changchun, 130118, China

    Yi Li & De-Xin Huang

  2. Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China

    Yi Li, Yan-Cun Yu, Chang-Yu Han & Xian-Hong Wang

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  1. Yi Li
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  2. Yan-Cun Yu
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Correspondence to Chang-Yu Han.

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Li, Y., Yu, YC., Han, CY. et al. Sustainable Blends of Poly(propylene carbonate) and Stereocomplex Polylactide with Enhanced Rheological Properties and Heat Resistance. Chin J Polym Sci 38, 1267–1275 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-020-2408-8

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