morphological and mechanical properties of pla/pbat/nanoclay bionanocomposite films for food packaging

Polylactic acid (pla) is one of the most appropriate choices instead of synthetic polymers, which could be used to avoid environmental pollution. however, its flexibility, toughness, and permeability properties must be improved to utilize this polymer, particularly within the packaging industry. in this work, this shortcoming of pla has been adjusted using 20 wt.% polybutylene adipate terephthalate (pbat) which is a flexible biodegradable synthetic polymer. moreover, two clay nanoparticles (cloesite 30b and cloesite 20a) (0.5, 1, 3, and 5 phr) were utilized to move forward the water vapor permeability (wvtr) and mechanical properties of blends. the results of the dsc test indicated an increase in the crystallinity in the presence of closite 30b(c30b) nanoparticles. the highest amount of crystalinity(30%) was observed in the sample containing 1phr c30b. fe-sem images showed a two-phase morphology (matrix droplet). the tensile test results showed an improvement in tensile strength in the presence of c30b nanoparticles, and the highest tensile strength was reported for the sample containing 1phr c30b with an amount of 42.8 mpa. in contrast, the elongation at break decreased significantly in all samples, excluding those containing 0.5 phr of clay, which almost remained constant.