Wheat bran addition as potential alternative to control the plasticizer migration into PLA/PBSA blends

Abstract

Wheat bran (WB) was investigated as potential filler for controlling the plasticizer migration in poly(lactic acid) (PLA)/poly(butylene succinate adipate) (PBSA) binary blends (with 60 wt.% of PLA and 40 wt.% of PBSA). The migration process of three different biobased and biodegradable plasticizers [Triacetin (TA), acetyl tri-n-butyl citrate (ATBC) and oligomeric lactic acid (OLA)] was investigated adding them at a fixed amount of 10 wt.%. TA revealed the greater mass loss over the time as confirmed from the calculation of the diffusion coefficients. The addition of WB in different amount (from 10 to 30 wt.%) revealed its tendency to influence the diffusion process in a manner strictly dependent on its content. The great dimensions of the WB, however, weaken the material suggesting to adopt a preliminary dimensional reduction of the filler to mitigate the negative effect observed on the mechanical properties. From this study emerged the WB potential to be used as filler for controlling the plasticizer migration, thus suggesting a possible valorization of this waste byproduct in biobased and biodegradable materials.