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Strong synergistic effects in PLA/PCL blends: impact of PLA matrix viscosity

SYSNO ASEP	0470664
Document Type	J - Journal Article
R&D Document Type	Journal Article
Subsidiary J	Článek ve WOS
Title	Strong synergistic effects in PLA/PCL blends: impact of PLA matrix viscosity
Author(s)	Ostafinska, Aleksandra (UMCH-V)_{RID, ORCID} Fortelný, Ivan (UMCH-V)_RID Hodan, Jiří (UMCH-V) Krejčíková, Sabina (UMCH-V) Nevoralová, Martina (UMCH-V)_{RID, ORCID} Kredatusová, Jana (UMCH-V)_RID Kruliš, Zdeněk (UMCH-V)_{RID, ORCID} Kotek, Jiří (UMCH-V)_RID Šlouf, Miroslav (UMCH-V)_{RID, ORCID}
Source Title	Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials. - : Elsevier - ISSN 1751-6161 Roč. 69, May (2017), s. 229-241
Number of pages	13 s.
Language	eng - English
Country	NL - Netherlands
Keywords	polymer blends ; bone tissue engineering ; poly(lactic acid)
Subject RIV	CD - Macromolecular Chemistry
OECD category	Polymer science
R&D Projects	GA14-17921S GA ČR - Czech Science Foundation (CSF)
	LO1507 GA MŠMT - Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS)
Institutional support	UMCH-V - RVO:61389013
UT WOS	000400199600025
EID SCOPUS	85009401615
DOI	10.1016/j.jmbbm.2017.01.015
Annotation	Blends of two biodegradable polymers, poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL), with strong synergistic improvement in mechanical performance were prepared by melt-mixing using the optimized composition (80/20) and the optimized preparation procedure (a melt-mixing followed by a compression molding) according to our previous study. Three different PLA polymers were employed, whose viscosity decreased in the following order: PLC approximately equal to PLA1 > PLA2 > PLA3. The blends with the highest viscosity matrix (PLA1/PCL) exhibited the smallest PCL particles (d~0.6 mu m), an elastic-plastic stable fracture (as determined from instrumented impact testing) and the strongest synergistic improvement in toughness (>16× with respect to pure PLA, exceeding even the toughness of pure PCL). According to the available literature, this was the highest toughness improvement in non-compatiblized PLA/PCL blends ever achieved. The decrease in the matrix viscosity resulted in an increase in the average PCL particle size and a dramatic decrease in the overall toughness: the completely stable fracture (for PLA1/PCL) changed to the stable fracture followed by unstable crack propagation (for PLA2/PCL) and finally to the completely brittle fracture (for PLA3/PCL). The stiffness of all blends remained at well acceptable level, slightly above the theoretical predictions based on the equivalent box model. Despite several previous studies, the results confirmed that PLA and PCL could behave as compatible polymers, but the final PLA/PCL toughness is extremely sensitive to the PCL particle size distribution, which is influenced by both processing conditions and PLA viscosity. PLA/PCL blends with high stiffness (due to PLA) and toughness (due to PCL) are very promising materials for medical applications, namely for the bone tissue engineering.
Workplace	Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry
Contact	Eva Čechová, cechova@imc.cas.cz ; Tel.: 296 809 358
Year of Publishing	2017

Number of the records: 1