Various-Sized Nanocelluloses Induced Stereocomplexes Crystallization Formation and Its Mechanism of Stereoisomers Poly(lactide acid) Blend
Yao Xie, Somia Yassin Hussain Abdalkarim, Ze Sheng Ji, Zhiming Chen, Mingxin Wang, Hou–Yong Yu
Abstract
This work provides evidence to explore the relationship between hydrogen bonding interactions and stereocomplex crystallization (SC) formation of nanocomposite-based nanocelluloses (NCs). Here, we evaluated the synergistic effect of various aspect ratios of NCs as nucleating agents on the properties of a poly( l -lactic acid)/poly( d -lactic acid) ( l / d ) stereocomplexable matrix using the casting method. Furthermore, NCs enhanced the interfacial adhesion interaction of the l / d matrix, improving crystallization ability, heat resistance, and barrier properties against the water vapor of nanocomposites. As expected, the nanocomposite with cellulose nanofibers (CNF 3 ) had the highest SC crystallinity of 33.9% and a maximum SC melting temperature of 220.6 °C. The tensile strength of the l / d /CNF 3 nanocomposite increased to 53.0 MPa due to the highest aspect ratio and rigidity of CNF, which improved interfacial hydrogen bonding interactions between CNF 3 and the l / d matrix. Compared with different samples, nanocomposite with cellulose nanospheres (CNS 3 ) had the smallest spherulite size. While nanocomposite with cellulose nanocrystals (CNC 3 ) exhibited more efficient heterogeneous nucleation than that of CNS 3 or CNF 3 . We demonstrated the relationship between the hydrogen-bonding interactions of l / d nanocomposites and crystallization kinetic/mechanism. This work offers a suitable strategy for selecting appropriate types of NCs as nucleating agents for designing high-performance materials for food packaging industries to solve the plastic melt processing problem.