Crystallization behavior of partially crosslinked poly(β‐hydroxyalkonates)/poly(butylene succinate) blends

Abstract

Partially crosslinked poly(β‐hydroxybutyrate‐co‐β‐hydroxyvalerate)/poly(butylene succinate) (PHBV/PBS) and poly(β‐hydroxybutyrate)/poly(butylene succinate) (PHB/PBS) blends were prepared by melt compounding with dicumyl peroxide. The effect of partial crosslinking on crystallization of the PHBV/PBS and PHB/PBS blends was investigated systematically. Differential scanning calorimetry results showed that the overall crystallization rates of both PHBV and PBS in their blends were enhanced considerably by the partial crosslinking. Similar results were also detected in the PHB/PBS blends. The polarized optical microscope observation displayed that the nuclei density of PHBV was increased while the spherulitic morphology did not change much. Conversely, the PBS spherulites turned into cloud‐like morphology after the partial crosslinking which is a result of the decrease in spherulite size, the reduction in interspherulite distance and the interconnection of fine PBS domains. Wide angle X‐ray diffraction patterns confirmed the enhancement in crystallization of the PHBV/PBS blends after the partial crosslinking without modification on crystalline forms of the PHBV and PBS components. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 41020.

Processing and characterization of binary poly(hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) and poly(caprolactone) (PCL) blends with improved impact properties

“…Despite this, its high production cost in comparison to commercial plastics, its high fragility due to high crystallinity, its relatively low melt viscosity as well as its thermal instability at moderate temperatures restrict its use [2,7]. With the aim of improving some of its properties PHB has been blended with several biodegradable polymers such as poly(lactic acid)-PLA [2,8], poly(pdioxanone)-PPD [5], poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) [9,10], poly(ethylene succinate) (PES) [11] or poly(caprolactone)-PCL [12][13][14].…”

Mechanical and thermal properties of poly(butylene succinate)/poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate‐co‐3‐hydroxyvalerate) biodegradable blends

“…To the best of our knowledge, research on biodegradable blends based on PBS and PHBV has not been extensively reported in the open scientific literature . The miscibility and crystallization behavior of PBS/PHBV blends at different compositions in the range from 80 : 20 to 20 : 80 was investigated by Qiu et al .…”

Nucleation and Crystallization in Bio-Based Immiscible Polyester Blends

“…Indeed, nucleation is commonly encountered at foreign surfaces, and it can thus be increased due to impurities/heterogeneities migration between the different phases during the blending process or to the presence of polymer/polymer interfaces. [1,2,10,[13][14][15][16][17]. The opposite situation, i.e., a decrease of crystallization kinetics, is also commonly observed whenever the crystallizable polymers are separated in a "sufficiently high" number of individual domains.…”