Journal
ACS SUSTAINABLE CHEMISTRY & ENGINEERING
Volume 7, Issue 1, Pages 1698-+Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b05461
Keywords
compostable; PLA; hydrophilic; carbon dioxide; CO2; poloxamer; polysorbate; floral foam
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation Center for Sustainable Polymers, an NSF-supported Center for Chemical Innovation at the University of Minnesota [CHE-1413862]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Commercially available low-density, hydrophilic foams are principally produced from nonrenewable petrochemical feedstocks and suffer from challenging disposal avenues and effective recycling. We aim to develop a biodegradable alternative using materials from sustainable chemical feedstocks. Here we report the preparation of expanded poly(lactide) via carbon dioxide-mediated batch foaming under relatively mild conditions (6 MPa CO2, T <= 50 degrees C). By changing architecture, temperature, and surfactant loading, we obtain tunable densities from 0.05 to 0.3 g/cm(3) and compressive strengths from 1.2 to 0.05 MPa. The use of poly(lactide) with a multiarm star architecture is preferable over the linear analogue in preparing low-density foams. Polysorbate and poloxamer type surfactants were incorporated with 4-arm star poly(lactide) enabling further reduction in foam densities and imparting persistent wettability to inherently hydrophobic poly(lactide). The practical utility of these biodegradable poly(lactide) foams was demonstrated as a potential replacement for current phenolic resin-based foams.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available