Liquid water transport in polylactide homo and graft copolymers.

The successful design of new biodegradable, renewable resource plastics as replacements to commodity barrier plastics would benefit from an accurate measurement of sorption and diffusion of liquids. In this study, the diffusion of liquid water in amorphous polylactide [PLA] and a PLA graft copolymer, poly(1,5-cyclooctadiene-co-5-norbornene-2-methanol-graft-dl-lactide) [PCNL], was examined with time-resolved Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflectance (FTIR-ATR) spectroscopy. Non-Fickian behavior was observed for all experiments, indicated by a slow approach to steady state due to diffusion and polymer relaxation occurring on similar time scales.