The effect of alginate on the mechanical, thermal, and rheological properties of nano calcium carbonate-filled polylactic acid composites

Traditional plasticizers to modify polylactic acid (PLA) usually leads to limited biodegradation, due to its inherent non-biodegradability of additives. In this work, we report a melt blending method to modify PLA using the alginic acid and two different alginates combined with nano CaCO 3 , a fully sustainable and biodegradable component. And, the mechanical, thermal, and rheological properties of the composites are investigated. We demonstrated that the filled samples show a lower tensile strength and higher impact strength which means a toughening effect occurs. Dynamic mechanical analysis experiments showed that the calcium alginate-filled samples show higher performances than other filled samples not only in static mechanical but also dynamic mechanical properties. The fracture morphology of the samples shows that a better interfacial reaction has been constituted for gel calcium alginate between CaCO 3 and PLA. Nevertheless, the thermogravimetric analysis results indicate that a lower thermal stability has been achieved in alginate filled samples. Chemorheological study indicated the alginate-filled samples also show a lower modulus and viscosity than neat PLA. It was found that the complex viscosity decrease with the addition of alginates, in comparison with PLA/CaCO 3 composites, and the samples filled with calcium alginate show a higher viscosity than those of sodium alginate and alginic acid. The alginate derivatives showed interesting potential as new green plastic additives attributed to origin from the biodegradable natural resources with a polymeric matrix. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:1882–1888, 2019. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers