Development of Injection-Molded Polylactide Pieces with High Toughness by the Addition of Lactic Acid Oligomer and Characterization of Their Shape Memory Behavior.

This work reports the effect of the addition of an oligomer of lactic acid (OLA), in the 5-20 wt% range, on the processing and properties of polylactide (PLA) pieces prepared by injection molding. The obtained results suggested that the here-tested OLA mainly performs as an impact modifier for PLA, showing a percentage increase in the impact strength of approximately 171% for the injection-molded pieces containing 15 wt% OLA. A slight plasticization was observed by the decrease of the glass transition temperature (T) of PLA of up to 12.