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Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is a biodegradable, thermoplastic, aliphatic polyester derived from renewable resources, which is a potential candidate to replace conventional polymers in food packaging applications.. Other bio-based materials like polyhydroxyalkanoates (in our case PHBV) could be associated with PLA in order to improve its gas barrier properties and/or its mechanical properties. Two processes, classical 3 layer coextrusion and original polymer blending extrusion, have been used in this study to combine PLA and PHBV to obtain films with different PLA-PHBV structures. The aim of this paper is to compare the thermoformability of the different films and to investigate the final structure in relationship with their gas barrier properties. The effect of the thermoforming steep has been studied by separating heating and stretching effects. We show that the blend morphology offers better mechanical and barrier properties than single PLA or 3 layers PLA/PHBV films.

In recent decades, the weight of passenger vehicles has constantly increased. This leads to a rise in fuel consumption and higher CO2 emissions. On this basis, vehicle weight reduction is a privileged research axis to meet regulatory requirements on emissions by 2020. The current study is focused on the development of thermoplastic polymer used in the automotive sector. In fact, thermoplastic polymers allow innovative design and offer the advantage of being recycled for sustainable development purposes. Some lighter fillers were incorporated in this polymer by melt processing for weight saving benefits. We were interested mainly in hollow microspheres which are lower density than conventional mineral fillers (such as: talc, calcium carbonate, glass fibers etc ...). This study explores the impact of pilot-scale melt-processing on six (6) hollow microspheres embedded in high impact polypropylene commonly used for car bumpers. We found that two commercially available microspheres (grades iM30K and K37) withstand melt-processing successfully and reduce the polymer density.

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