Botta Chiara, Grottola Corinna Maria, Amato Davide, Acocella Maria Rosaria
Agricola Imballaggi S.r.l., 84044 Albanella, Italy.
Institute of Sciences and Technologies for Sustainable Energy and Mobility (STEMS), National Research Council (CNR), 80125 Naples, Italy.
Polymers (Basel). 2024 Nov 29;16(23):3347. doi: 10.3390/polym16233347.
As an alternative to fossil-based polymers, polylactide acid (PLA) has stimulated a significant research effort in the past few years due to the demand for environmentally friendly products. Even though PLA is considered a sustainable or bio-based material, the long-term degradation in ambient conditions increases the volume of waste at end-of-life. To overcome this issue, PLA waste can be recycled to produce new manufactures; however, this approach does not always ensure the same mechanical properties as the original PLA. This study shows for the first time that adding biochar, a carbon material derived from biomass pyrolysis, enhances the processability and stability of composite recycled PLA. Composites are provided in 1, 2.5, and 5 wt% of the biochar filler, resulting in good processability, a higher modulus of up to 20%, and a higher stability to degradation in the presence of UV aging treatment with respect to the raw material. Additionally, DSC analysis shows a significant nucleation effect induced by the biochar that achieves 30% crystallinity from an essentially amorphous PLA.
作为化石基聚合物的替代品，聚乳酸（PLA）在过去几年中因对环保产品的需求而引发了大量研究工作。尽管PLA被视为一种可持续或生物基材料，但在环境条件下的长期降解会增加使用寿命结束时的废物量。为克服这一问题，PLA废料可被回收以生产新的制品；然而，这种方法并不总能确保与原始PLA具有相同的机械性能。本研究首次表明，添加生物炭（一种源自生物质热解的碳材料）可提高复合再生PLA的加工性能和稳定性。提供了含有1%、2.5%和5%生物炭填料的复合材料，其具有良好的加工性能、高达20%的更高模量，并且相对于原材料，在紫外线老化处理下具有更高的降解稳定性。此外，差示扫描量热法（DSC）分析表明，生物炭可诱导显著的成核效应，使基本为无定形的PLA实现30%的结晶度。
