Effects of Micro- and Nano-cellulose on Tensile and Morphological Properties of Montmorillonite Nanoclay Reinforced Poly
In this chapter, the effects of micro- and nano-cellulose; microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and cellulose nanowhiskers (CNW), on the properties of montmorillonite (MMT)/polylactic acid (PLA) nanocomposites fabricated using solution casting method were inv
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mandi A. Hassan (&) Department of Bioprocess and Polymer Engineering, Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia e-mail: [email protected] M.K. Mohamad Haafiz School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Gelugor, Penang, Malaysia Z. Zakaria Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor Bahru, Malaysia © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 M. Jawaid et al. (eds.), Nanoclay Reinforced Polymer Composites, Engineering Materials, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0950-1_5
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Keywords Polylactic acid Montmorillonite Cellulose nanowhiskers Hybrid nanocomposites
Microcrystalline cellulose Tensile properties
1 Introduction In recent years, biodegradable polymers produced from renewable resources have become attractive for practical applications such as medical devices and food packaging (Vroman and Tighzert 2009). Polylactic acid (PLA) is a commercially available biopolymer. It is biodegradable thermoplastic polyester produced from Land D-lactic acid, which is derived from the fermentation of corn starch (Petersson and Oksman 2006). PLA is a ‘‘green polymer’’ because it can be finally degraded into CO2 and H2O (Liu et al. 2013a). Due to its high strength/stiffness and ease of process, PLA offers a potential alternative to petrochemical plastics in many applications (Huda et al. 2008). However, there are several obstacles for the use of PLA, including low toughness, low impact resistance and moderate gas barrier properties, its inherent brittleness, high production cost and undesirable thermal stability, which are all important properties for packaging applications (Oksman et al. 2006; Sanchez-Garcia and Lagaron 2010). Hence, many approaches have been adopted to overcome these inherent limitations, including the use of plasticizers, polymers blending, layered silicates and other inorganic particles (Sanchez-Garcia and Lagaron 2010; Petersson et al. 2007). Clay reinforced polymer nanocomposites have received significant attention compared to conventional composites because polymer/clay nanocomposites often exhibit considerable improvement in physical, thermal, mechanical and optical properties and fire retardancy at low filler contents (Hong and Kim 2013). PLA/layered silicate nanocomposites have been shown to exhibit improved tensile strength and Young’s modulus compared to neat PLA (Sinha Ray and Okamoto 2003). Montmorillonite (MMT) which consists of two fused silica tetrahedral sheets sandwiching an edge shared octahedral sheet is the most commonly used layered silicate in this respect. However, raw MMT often produces immiscible phases with hydrophobic polymers such as PLA due to its hydrophilic character. For this reason, the ammonium ions are exchanged by more voluminous organic cations, which can strengthen the chemical interaction between PLA and MMT and also induces the formation of layered or exfoliated organic/inorganic nanocomposites (Sinha Ray and Okamoto 2003).
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