Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Poly(lactic acid) toughened with Bio-sourced Epoxidized Neem oil.

Poly lactic acid (PLA), renewable, bioactive, biocompatible and biodegradable thermoplastic polyester has become a stupendous candidate in the bioplastics world substituting the other known conventional thermoplastic polymers. However, the brittle nature of the polymer limits its applications in different sectors. To overcome the brittleness, different modification techniques such as copolymerization, blending, plasticization were usually employed. Toughening with epoxidized vegetable oil is one of the easiest and fruitful method to overcome the brittleness as the components are fully bio resourced. Neem oil is non edible oil which is widely available in India, derived from neem plant. Epoxidized neem oil lowers the glass transition temperature of PLA and improves its chain mobility. The results showed that PLA blended with 10% epoxidized neem oil (ENO) elucidated an augmented impact strength and elongation at break compared to pristine PLA which makes the epoxidized neem oil a good eco-friendly toughening agent for PLA.
This database include excel and txt. files for FTIR spectroscopy, TGA, and DSC.