Ductility and Toughness Improvement of Injection-Molded Compostable Pieces of Polylactide by Melt Blending with Poly(ε-caprolactone) and Thermoplastic Starch.

The present study describes the preparation and characterization of binary and ternary blends based on polylactide (PLA) with poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and thermoplastic starch (TPS) to develop fully compostable plastics with improved ductility and toughness. To this end, PLA was first melt-mixed in a co-rotating twin-screw extruder with up to 40 wt % of different PCL and TPS combinations and then shaped into pieces by injection molding. The mechanical, thermal, and thermomechanical properties of the resultant binary and ternary blend pieces were analyzed and related to their composition.