Microstructure and physical properties of poly(lactic acid)/ polycaprolactone/rice straw lightweight bio-composite foams for wall insulation

Using polylactic acid (PLA) as the green wall insulation materials have the advantages of environmental pro-tection and renewable, but they are not widely used due to poor performance. To solve this problem, azodi-carbonamide (AC) used as the foaming agent and PLA/rice straw (RS) bio-composite foams were processed using the moulded foaming method. And degradable polycaprolactone (PCL) was added to improve the performance of foams. After the addition of 40 wt% PCL, the impact strength, compression strength and water resistance of the foams were improved by 357.7 %, 277.1 % and 803.9 %, respectively. All foams exhibited excellent insulation performance of 0.038-0.040w/(m center dot k). Thus, this study provides an effective way to resource utilization of crop waste and prepare high-performance wall insulation foam materials.

Automated summary

By using AC as foaming agent and adding PCL to improve performance, PLA/RS bio-composite foams were successfully processed. The foams exhibited significantly improved properties and excellent insulation performance.