Obtaining and Characterization of Biodegradable Composites Reinforced with Microcrystalline Cellulose Fillers

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing discussion about the problems related to the massive use of many synthetic plastic materials, which inevitably leads to an increase in environmental pollution caused by the inappropriate disposal of these materials. In this sense, biodegradable materials have been a subject of great interest, as they are a real alternative to replace these materials and tackle this issue. In this work, fully biodegradable composites were prepared by solution casting method. Microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) and treated microcrystalline cellulose (TMCC) were separately incorporated into biodegradable PLA and PHB matrices at ratios of 3, 5 and 7 wt% and the properties of the obtained biocomposites were evaluated by TGA, DSC, XRD and TD-NMR. From thermal analyses, it was seen that TMCC resulted in better thermal stability and 3 wt% of filler, in general, promoted a more pronounced thermal improvement. Furthermore Tg, Tc and Tm remained practically unchanged after MCC and TMCC addition. From XRD it was seen that the cellulose fillers influence in different ways the matrices, promoting increase or decrease in the degree of crystallinity. Finally, the results obtained by TD-NMR showed a decrease in the T 1 H values for all prepared biocomposites, indicating a good dispersion of the cellulose fillers in the matrices and pointed that the systems containing 3 wt% of cellulose fillers were the most homogeneous formulations.