Polymer Blend Nanocomposites Based on Cellulose Nanocrystals (CNC)
Résumé
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have gained much more attention because they are
biocompatible and biodegradable. Moreover, they have high elastic modulus and low density
and they are based on the most abundant resources in the environment. They are now
commercially available and used for many applications: adhesives, paper, paints and
coatings, cosmetics and health care, electronics. As shown by Pr Carreau and Pr Heuzey’s
teams it is possible to disperse CNCs into biodegradable matrices while using solvents 1.
The selective dispersion of nanoparticles (NPs) into polymer blends, allows reaching peculiar
morphologies and improving the final properties 2. This has been demonstrated by Taguet et
al. for different nanoparticles (silica, kaolin, halloysite, magnesium dihydroxide) into a large
number of polymer blends 3–5. It is proposed here to present first some previous work on the
effect of localization of NPs into polymer blends on final properties. Then, the dispersion of
CNCs into a blend based on biodegradable polymers (poly(lactic acid) and poly(butylene
adipate-co-terephthalate), PLA/PBAT) will be discussed. 1wt% of freeze dried CNCs
(supplied by FPInnovations) were added to 75/25 PLA/PBAT blends based on an amorphous
and a semi-crystalline PLA (a-PLA and sc-PLA) using solution casting (in
dimethylformamide, DMF) followed by melt mixing (under internal mixer). Figure 1 shows the
complex viscosity data of CNC based PLA/PBAT blend nanocomposites.