Synthesis and Study of Fully Biodegradable Composites Based on Poly(butylene succinate) and Biochar.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Papadopoulou, Katerina Klonos, Panagiotis A. Kyritsis, Apostolos Mašek, Ondřej Wurzer, Christian Tsachouridis, Konstantinos Anastasiou, Antonios D. Bikiaris, Dimitrios N.
Editor	Kim, Beom Soo
Copyright Year	2023
Abstract	Biodegradable polymers offer a promising alternative to the global plastic problems and especially in the last decade, to the microplastics problems. For the first time, samples of poly(butylene succinate) (PBSu) biocomposites containing 1, 2.5, and 5 wt% biochar (BC) were prepared by in situ polymerization via the two-stage melt polycondensation procedure. BC was used as a filler for the PBSu to improve its mechanical properties, thermal transitions, and biodegradability. The structure of the synthesized polymers was examined by 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and X-Ray diffraction (XRD) along with an estimation of the molecular weights, while differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and light flash analysis (LFA) were also employed to record the thermal transitions and evaluate the thermal conductivity, respectively. It was found that the amount of BC does not affect the molecular weight of PBSu biocomposites. The fine dispersion of BC, as well as the increase in BC content in the polymeric matrix, significantly improves the tensile and impact strengths. The DSC analysis results showed that BC facilitates the crystallization of PBSu biocomposites. Due to the latter, a mild and systematic increase in thermal diffusivity and conductivity was recorded indicating that BC is a conductive material. The molecular mobility of PBSu, local and segmental, does not change significantly in the biocomposites, whereas the BC seems to cause an increase in the overall dielectric permittivity. Finally, it was found that the enzymatic hydrolysis degradation rate of biocomposites increased with the increasing BC content.
Journal	Polymers
Volume Number	15
PubMed Central reference number	PMC9960386
Issue Number	4
PubMed reference number	36850331
e-ISSN	20734360
DOI	10.3390/polym15041049
Language	English
Publisher	MDPI
Publisher Date	2023-02-20
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). © 2023 by the authors.
Subject Keyword	poly(butylene succinate) biochar biocomposites thermal properties thermal conductivity molecular mobility mechanical properties enzymatic hydrolysis
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Chemistry Polymers and Plastics