Effect of polyethylene glycol on the crystallization, rheology and foamability of poly(lactic acid) containing in situ generated polyamide 6 nanofibrils

Abstract

In this study, the rheological properties, crystallization and foaming behavior of poly(lactic acid) with polyamide 6 nanofibrils were examined with polyethylene glycol as a compatibilizer. Polyamide 6 particles were deformed into nanofibrils during drawing. For the 10% polyamide 6 case, polyethylene glycol addition reduced the polyamide 6 fibril diameter from 365.53 to 254.63 nm, owing to the smaller polyamide 6 particle size and enhanced interface adhesion. Rheological experiments revealed that the viscosity and storage modulus of the composites were increased, which was associated with the three-dimensional entangled network of polyamide 6 nanofibrils. The presence of higher aspect ratio polyamide 6 nanofibrils substantially enhanced the melt strength of the composites. The isothermal crystallization kinetics results suggested that the polyamide 6 nanofibrils and polyethylene glycol had a synergistic effect on accelerating poly(lactic acid) crystallization. With the polyethylene glycol, the crystallization half-time reduced from 103.6 to 62.2 s. Batch foaming results indicated that owing to higher cell nucleation efficiency, the existence of polyamide 6 nanofibrils led to a higher cell density and lower expansion ratio. Furthermore, the poly(lactic acid)/polyamide 6 foams exhibited a higher cell density and expansion ratio than that of the foams without polyethylene glycol.

Key words： poly(lactic acid); foaming; microfibrillation; rheological property; crystallization

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for support from the Key Scientific and Technological Projects of Henan Province (Grant Nos. 232102230153, 232102230158, and for international cooperation 232102521021), the National Natural Science Joint Fund of China (Grant No. U1909219), the Key R&D Project of Henan Province (Grant No. 221111520200), the Scientific and Technological Research Project of Henan Province (Grand No. 202102210028).

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at http://doi.org/10.1007/s11705-023-2342-8 and is accessible for authorized users.

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