Biobased immiscible polylactic acid (PLA) : poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) blends : impact of rheological and non-isothermal crystallization on the bead foaming behavior

Abstract

Nowadays, bead foams are of great interest due to their high lightweight potential. The processing of such foams strongly depends on the crystallization and rheological behavior of the polymers used. By blending polymers, these properties can be tailored to obtain beaded foams with low density, small cell size and high cell density. As a bio-based polymer, PLA is of great interest due to its renewable carbon source. PLA suffers from its low thermal and rheological properties, which can be compensated by using blends. The correlation between the PLA/PHBV ratio and the rheological as well as the crystallization behavior was investigated. The use of PHBV as a minor phase significantly changes the rheological properties and increases the crystallization behavior of PLA. These findings were applied to the foam extrusion process to obtain low density bead foams. Bead foams with densities below 100 kg/m 3 , mean cell sizes below 50 µm and cell densities of 1 × 10 7 cells/cm 3 were obtained.