Impact of UV treatment on polylactide-polyethylene film properties

Abstract

Influence of different environmental factors on the degradation of film samples based on polylactic acid and low density polyethylene with the addition of aged polyethylene was studied in this work. The article presents data after 100 hours influence of UV irradiation (λ=254 nm) obtained by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and electronic paramagnetic resonance (EPR). It was found that polylactide is more prone to UV degradation than polyethylene. It is shown that the effect of UV radiation for 100 hours reduces the melting point of polylactide from 165 to 135 °C, while the thermal characteristics of polyethylene vary slightly. There is a decrease in the melting temperature of the polylactide by 10-30 °C in all compositions. In the compositions with the content of PLA is more than 50 wt. % correlation time after UV exposure is significantly reduced.