Injection molding of thermoplastic corn starch/poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) blends

CASTILLO, LUCIANA E; LÓPEZ, OLIVIA; BARBOSA, SILVIA ELENA; GARCÍA, MARIA ALEJANDRA; VILLAR, MARCELO

Buenos Aires

Workshop; II Workshop on Bio-degradable Polymers and Biocomposites III Workshop BIOPURFIL, Bio-based Polyurethane Composites with Natural Fillers; 2015

UBA

Due to the increased awareness over the environmental hazards caused by the use of non-biodegradable synthetic plastics, academic research is oriented towards the study of more environmentally friendly materials. Within this context, poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB) is one of the biopolymers more studied mainly due to some of its physical properties are similar to those of polypropylene [1, 2]. However, PHB is not widely used because of the high cost associated to its obtaining and processing methods. An alternative to overcome these limitations is the blending of PHB with other polymers [3]. Thus, one of the most promising candidates to blend with this polyester is thermoplastic starch (TPS) in order to obtain PHB biodegradable based materials with relatively good final properties and more competitive from the economic point of view. The aim of this work was to develop TPS/PHB blends by melt processing and injection molding at laboratory scale. In this context, the optimal temperature range of processing for TPS and PHB was previously determined.