Sustainable Engineered Design and Scalable Manufacturing of Upcycled Graphene Reinforced Polylactic Acid/Polyurethane Blend Composites Having Shape Memory Behavior.

Material design in shape memory polymers (SMPs) carries significant importance in attaining high performance and adjusting the interface between additive and host polymer matrix to increase the degree of recovery. Herein, the main challenge is to enhance the interfacial interactions to provide reversibility during deformation. The present work describes a newly designed composite structure by manufacturing a high-degree biobased and thermally induced shape memory polylactic acid (PLA)/thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) blend incorporated with graphene nanoplatelets obtained from waste tires.