Degradable Poly(lactide) Architectures for Vehicle Applications

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Poly(lactide) (PLA) is a renewable, degradable and compostable thermoplastic with mechanical properties similar to poly(styrene). Unfortunately, PLA is inherently brittle and possesses poor melt strength. In particular, the brittle nature of PLA limits its current utility to disposable packing. Melt blends of PLA and a rubbery material can rubber toughen the plastic. Current efforts explore using block and graft copolymers with a majority PLA block and minority rubbery block that phase separate on the nanometer length scale to rubber toughen PLA. Careful molecular design is needed to obtain the desired phase separation on nanometer length scale. To achieve these hierarchically structured, tough, and sustainable, and degradable materials, controlled polymerization, post-polymerization functionalization, and coupling chemistries need to be developed. These methods will not only benefit the field of tough sustainable plastics but other areas of polymer chemistry.