Author : Jennifer Andrea Villamil Jiménez
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (139 download)
Book Synopsis Development of Biopolymer Foams by Supercritical CO2 Assisted Processes by : Jennifer Andrea Villamil Jiménez
Download or read book Development of Biopolymer Foams by Supercritical CO2 Assisted Processes written by Jennifer Andrea Villamil Jiménez and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Polylactic acid (PLA) is a commercially available biopolymer that is of great interest in various industrial fields, especially for the production of polymer foams. With the development of technologies that seek to reduce the environmental impact of processes, chemical foaming agents are being replaced by physical agents, mainly supercritical fluids (SCF) such as carbon dioxide (sc-CO2). Currently, the mass production of low-density PLA foams with uniform microcellular morphology using SCFs as foaming agents is a challenge. This is mainly due to the low melt strength of PLA and its slow crystallisation kinetics. Among the different options to improve the characteristics of PLA, combining it with different types of fillers has great potential to improve the foaming but also the performance of the final composites. Moreover, the operating conditions and the characteristics of the fillers such as their size, aspect ratio, and surface chemistry play an important role in the final foam morphology. In this context, this work focused on the fabrication of composite foams from PLA and cellulose fibres usingsupercritical CO2 (sc-CO2) as foaming agent. The first part of the work was devoted to the formulation of the composites and the study of their properties, in particular the effect of the fibres on crystallinity. These composites were then foamed by a batch process and a continuous sc-CO2 assisted extrusion process. The effect of cellulose content and aspect ratio (length/diameter) on the solidification and crystallisation kinetics of PLA was studied. These results are used as a means of understanding the morphology and characteristics of the PLA-cellulose composite foams produced.