Crystallization of poly(lactic acid) enhanced by phthalhydrazide as nucleating agent

The effect of phthalhydrazide compound on the nonisothermal and isothermal crystallization behavior of bio-based and biodegradable poly(lactic acid) (PLA) was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and polarized optical microscopy. The nonisothermal melt crystallization of PLA started much earlier in the presence of phthalhydrazide even at a phthalhydrazide content as low as 0.1 wt%. The isothermal crystallization kinetics was analyzed by the Avrami model. It was found that the Avrami exponent of the PLA crystallization was not significantly influenced by the addition of phthalhydrazide, indicating that the crystallization mechanism almost did not change in the composites. The crystallization half-time of PLA/phthalhydrazide composites decreased significantly with increase in phthalhydrazide loading. The observation from optical microscopy showed that the presence of phthalhydrazide increased the number of nucleation sites. The above observations indicate that phthalhydrazide is an efficient nucleating agent of PLA.