PEEK modified PLA shape memory blends: towards enhanced mechanical and deformation properties

Abstract

Polylactic acid (PLA) is one of the most promising shape memory polymers with outstanding biocompatibility, while poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK) is a special engineering plastic with excellent mechanical performance. In this work, PEEK was selected to modify PLA, and a series of PLA blended with different PEEK contents (PLA/PEEK blends) were obtained. The effects of PEEK on thermodynamic, mechanical and shape memory properties of PLA/PEEK blends were investigated. The results showed that the thermal stability of the PLA/PEEK blend was improved with the PEEK content increase. The tensile strength reached the highest value of 20.6 MPa when the PEEK content was 10%. While the best shape memory performance occurred with the PEEK content of 15%, the shape recovery time was less than 2 s, and the shape fixation/recovery ratio was more than 99%. Furthermore, the programmable mimetic flower opening process was achieved by using PLA/PEEK blends with different PEEK content ratios. The above results indicated that the blend of an appropriate proportion of PEEK had positive effects on mechanical and deformation performances of PLA.

Keywords

poly(ether ether ketone) / polylactic acid / shape memory polymer / smart material

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Project of National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFB1105100, 2018YFC2001300 and 2018YFA0703300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51822504, 51675223 and 91848204), the Joint Foundation for Equipment Pre-research of Ministry of Education (2018G944J00084), the Key Scientific and Technological Project of Jilin Province (20180201051GX), the Program for JLU Science and Technology Innovative Research Team (2017TD-04), the National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (BX20180126), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M641769).

Appendix

The video showing the expanding process of the three-layer bionic flower can be found at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11706-020-0502-z.

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