Enhanced crystallization of poly (lactic acid) through reactive aliphatic bisamide

The poor crystallization rate of poly (lactic acid) (PLA) is a major drawback in terms of controlling the properties of final products. To overcome this, a nucleating agent is normally applied. In this work, the aliphatic bisamide, N, N'-(1,3-propylene) bis(10-undecenamide) (PBU), having reactive functional groups is used as a crystallization promoter for PLA by adding PBU in various concentration (0.1-0.7 wt%) into PLA together with peroxide via reactive melt blending. The conventional ethylene bis-stearamide(EBS) is used for a comparison. The extruded samples are characterized for gel content and FT-IR spectroscopy. The crystallization behaviour and rate, and spherulites morphology are investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and polarized optical microscopy (POM), respectively. It is found that the addition of PBU into PLA results in the dramatic increase in crystallinity and crystallization rate of PLA compared with neat PLA and PLA added EBS. The crystallinity increases to 24.9-28.3% higher than neat PLA under even cooling rate of 7°C/min. The addition of 0.7 wt% PBU shows the fastest crystallization rate with t_1/2 value isothermally crystallized at 130°C of only 6 min. POM images indicate the increase in the nucleation density and very fine spherulitesof PLA added PBU, promoting the fast crystallization.