Interfacial Shish-Kebabs Lengthened by Coupling Effect of In Situ Flexible Nanofibrils and Intense Shear Flow: Achieving Hierarchy To Conquer the Conflicts between Strength and Toughness of Polylactide

Sheng-Yang Zhou; Ben Niu; Xu-Long Xie; Xu Ji; Gan-Ji Zhong; Benjamin S Hsiao; Zhong-Ming Li

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b00479

Interfacial Shish-Kebabs Lengthened by Coupling Effect of In Situ Flexible Nanofibrils and Intense Shear Flow: Achieving Hierarchy To Conquer the Conflicts between Strength and Toughness of Polylactide

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Mar 22;9(11):10148-10159. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b00479. Epub 2017 Mar 9.

Authors

Sheng-Yang Zhou¹, Ben Niu¹, Xu-Long Xie¹, Xu Ji², Gan-Ji Zhong¹, Benjamin S Hsiao³, Zhong-Ming Li¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University , Chengdu, 610065 Sichuan China.
² College of Chemical Engineering, Sichuan University , Chengdu, 610065 Sichuan China.
³ Department of Chemistry, Stony Brook University , Stony Brook, New York 11794-3400, United States.

PMID: 28252280
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b00479

Abstract

The challenge of hitherto elaborating a feasible pathway to overcome the conflicts between strength and toughness of polylactide (PLA) still remains among academia and industry. In the current work, a unique hierarchal structure of flexible poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) in situ nanofibrils integrating with abundant PLA shish-kebabs as a strong building block was disclosed and expresses its capability to conquer this dilemma. Substantially simultaneous enhancement on tensile strength, impact strength, and elongation at break could be achieved up to 91.2 MPa, 14.9 KJ/m², and 15.7%, respectively, compared with pure PLA (61.5 MPa, 4.3 KJ/m², and 6.2%). Through investigating the phase (and crystalline) morphology and molecular chain behavior in the PLA/PBAT system, the formation mechanism of this structure facilitated by a coupling effect of PBAT flexible phase and shear flow was definitely elucidated. The dispersed phase of PBAT would be more inclined to existing as a fibrillar form within the PLA matrix benefiting from low interfacial tension. Interestingly, this phase morphology with large specific surface area changes the crystallization behavior of PLA significantly, once introducing an intense shear flow (∼10³ s^-1), in situ shear-formed nanofibrils of PBAT would show strong coupling effect with shear flow on PLA crystallization: they can not only induce abundant shish-kebabs of PLA at its interfaces, which possesses lengthened shish and more densely arranged kebabs, but also further retard the relaxation of PLA chains through hysteretic relaxation of its PBAT phase, which can effectively prevent the collapse of established shish. Of immense significance is this particular hierarchical-architecture composed by flexible nanofibers (PBAT) and rigid shish-kebabs (PLA), which provides significant guidance for the simultaneous reinforcement and toughness of polymer materials.

Keywords: coupling effect; flow-induced crystallization; in situ nanofibrils; lengthened shish-kebab; mechanical performance; polylactide.