Characterization and preperation of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (P3HB) / thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) composites containing various additives

Bacterial poly[(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate] (PHB) is a well-known thermoplastic polyester and similar mechanical performance with petroleum-based polymers such as polypropylene (PP). PHB that has many interesting properties such as piezoelectricity and nonline aropticalactivity which may be useful in many biomedical and biotechnology applications due to its nontoxic, biocompatibility, biodegradability, highly crystalline, hard-brittle and insoluble in water. In this study, PHB/TPU and PP/TPU composites with weight ratio 12.5/87.5 containing various Additives (0.5%) as polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), barium titanate (BaTiO3) and boronnitride (h-BN) were prepared by melt blending in a corotating inter mesh twin-screw extruder with a screw diameter of D 16 mm and a screw length–diameter (L/D) ratio of 40. For comparison purpose, TPU composites were also prepared using the same additives. The melt-compounded rod extrudate was then cooled and granulated in situ using a pelletizer. The pellets were injection molded into test samples by using a 12-ml microinjection molder. These composite materials were characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy, thermal (DSC and TGA), mechanical (tensile (ASTM D 638), flexural (three-point bending) (ASTM D 790), DMA, Shore-D hardness points and morphological test (SEM).