Influence of Processing Conditions on Morphological, Thermal and Degradative Behavior of Nanocomposites Based on Plasticized Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) and Organo-Modified Clay

PUGLIA, D.; FORTUNATI, E.; D?AMICO, D. A.; MIRI, V.; STOCLET, G.; MANFREDI, L. B.; CYRAS, V. P.; KENNY, J. M.

JOURNAL OF POLYMERS AND THE ENVIRONMENT

SPRINGER/PLENUM PUBLISHERS

Año: 2016 vol. 24 p. 12 - 22

1566-2543

The effect of processing conditions (castingand extrusion) and plasticization on the disintegrability incompost of organically modified clay poly(3-hydroxybutyrate)nanocomposites was studied. Tributylhexadecylphosphoniumbromide (TBHP) was used as organicmodifier. As revealed by WAXS and TEM observations,intercalated nanobiocomposites with clay stacks and someindividually dispersed platelets were obtained. The meltingtemperature of the neat PHB diminished with the additionof plasticizer, thus broadening the processing window.Biodegradation test revealed that while the clay slowsdown the degradation rate, the plasticizer increases thedegradation of the samples, reaching a similar final percentageof disintegrability when both plasticizer and claywere added in the formulation.