Mechanical performance, heat transfer and conduction of ultrasonication treated polyaniline bio-based blends

The thermally and electrically conductive biodegradable polymer blends of polylactic acid (PLA), modified natural rubber (mNR) and polyaniline (PANi) were mixed by ultrasonication-assisted melt compounding method. The effects of ultrasonic treatment times from 0.5 to 3.0 h and different PLA-mNR/PANi compositions (99.97/0.03 to 99.89/0.11) were studied. The incorporation of PANi led to the enhancement in mechanical properties of the PLA-mNR samples. The highest tensile property was obtained at the ultrasonic treatment of 1.0 h. An improvement of 17% in the tensile strength was achieved at 99.91/0.09 as the optimum PLA-mNR/PANi composition as compared to neat PLA-mNR. Beyond the optimum loading, the inclusion of PANi retarded the heat transfer which resulted in the reduced thermal stabilities but introduced better heat and electrical conduction to the insulating PLA-mNR matrix. The scanning electron microscopy micrographs for PLA-mNR/PANi showed the good dispersion of PANi within PLA-mNR and strong interaction networks among the polymer components.