The Potential of an Itaconic Acid Diester as EnvironmentallyFriendly Plasticizer for Injection-Molded Polylactide Parts

Abstract

[EN] This work reports on the use of dibutyl itaconate (DBI) as an environmentallyfriendly plasticizer for polylactide (PLA) with different proportions of DBI inthe 2.5¿20 wt% (weight content) range. A co-rotating twin-screw extrusionprocess followed by injection molding is employed for the manufacturing ofthe samples. The results show that the plasticized PLA formulation with10 wt% DBI offers the most balanced overall properties, with a noticeableincrease in the elongation at break from 4.6% (neat PLA) up to 322%, with atensile modulus of 1572 MPa, and a tensile strength of 23.8 MPa. In the caseof 15 and 20 wt% DBI formulations, PLA reaches the saturation point with nomore increase in the elongation at break and a clear decrease in the tensilemodulus. DBI also decreases the glass transition temperature (Tg)from61.3°C (neat PLA) down to 23.4°C for plasticized PLA formulation containing20 wt% DBI, thus showing the high plasticization efficiency of DBI.J.I.-M. wants to thank FPU19/01759 grant funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ESF Investing in your future. J.G.-C. wants to thank Generalitat Valenciana-GVA, for his FPI grant (ACIF/2021/185) and grant FPU20/01732 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ESF Investing in your future. Also, Microscopy Services at UPV are also acknowledged by their help in collecting and analyzing images. This research is a part of the grant PID2020-116496RB-C22 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and the grant AICO/2021/025 funded by Generalitat Valenciana-GVAIvorra-Martínez, J.; Peydro, MA.; Gómez-Caturla, J.; Boronat, T.; Balart, R. (2022). The Potential of an Itaconic Acid Diester as EnvironmentallyFriendly Plasticizer for Injection-Molded Polylactide Parts. Macromolecular Materials and Engineering. 307(12):1-15. https://doi.org/10.1002/mame.2022003601153071