An investigation on the effect of pressure and temperature on microcellular foams of Poly(lactic) acid (PLA)/Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (ABS) binary blends

Abstract

Reducing the weight of petrol-derived plastics is a common way to decrease the environmental impact of several products. Another option consist in using biopolymers instead. However, most of the times, the complete substitution is not possible and partial replacement, usually obtained by blending, appears as a solution. The foaming of these blends combine both strategies and constitute a further step to reduce the amount of petrol-derived plastics. In this study, PLA/ABS blends were prepared by melt blending without using any type of compatibilizer and were foamed by batch using super critical carbon dioxide as foaming agent. The final morphology of the blends were studied by SEM as a function pressure and process temperature. Results shows that PLA/ABS blends can be successfully foamed under different conditions obtaining better structures than the ones of pure components.