Aurélie Taguet

Poly(3-Hydroxybutyrate-co-3-Hydroxyvalerate)/Polylactide Blends: Thermal Stability, Flammability and Thermo-Mechanical Behavior

Blends of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) and polylactide (PLA) with different PHBV/PLA weight ratios (100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, 0/100) were prepared by melt compounding. Their mutual contributions in terms of thermal stability, flammability resistance, mechanical properties and rheological behavior were investigated. The study showed that the increase in PLA content in PHBV/PLA blends leads to enhanced properties. Consequently, thermal stability and flammability resistance were improved. Further, the rheological measurements indicated an increase in storage modulus and loss modulus of PHBV matrix by addition of PLA.

Flame Retardancy of Natural Fibers Reinforced Composites

Due to numerous advantages (high specific mechanical properties, low density, biosourcing, …), natural fibers from plants are considered as credible alternatives to glass or carbon fibers for composites industry. Nevertheless, their relatively high flammability limits their potential applications. Many researches have been carried out to improve the flame retardancy of composites reinforced with natural fibers. This chapter attempts to establish the state-of-art of these researches.

Flame Retardant Biobased Polymers

Environmental concerns arising from the limits to the waste management of plastics have entailed a strong development of biobased and biodegradable polymers for a wide range of applications. Tailoring new plastics and composites within a perspective of sustainable development aims to create an environmentally safe alternative to oil based polymer materials. Different categories of these polymers can be distinguished according to their complete or only partial renewable character as well as their ability to biodegrade.

Biobased Flame Retardants

A great part of commercially available flame retardants are oil-derived organic compounds (e.g. organo-halogenated, organo-phosphorous, organo-nitrogen compounds). As part of oil-based products, they face the same issues: growing scarcity of petroleum, geopolitical problems, impact on global warning. Moreover some of these compounds (i.e. the halogenated compounds) have received a bad press because there are suspected to provoke specific health and environment concerns.

Tribological and mechanical properties of polyamide-11/halloysite nanotube nanocomposites

Abstract This article reports some morphological, tribological, and mechanical data on polyamide-11(PA11)/halloysite nanotube (HNT) nanocomposites prepared by melt-compounding. HNTs extracted from the Djebel Debbagh deposit in Algeria were incorporated into the polymer at 1, 3, and 5 wt%. For comparison, commercial HNTs were also used under the same processing conditions. Scanning electron microscopy showed that both HNTs were homogeneously dispersed in the PA11 matrix, despite the presence of few aggregates, in particular at higher filler contents. The tribological properties were significantly improved, resulting in a decrease in the friction coefficient and the wear rate characteristics due to the lubricating effect of HNTs. This is consistent with optical profilometry data, which evidenced the impact of both types of HNTs on the surface topography of the nanocomposite samples, in which the main wear process was plastic deformation. Furthermore, Young’s modulus and tensile strength were observed to increase with the filler content, but to the detriment of elongation at break and impact strength. Regarding the whole data, the raw Algerian halloysite led to interesting results in PA11 nanocomposites, thus revealing its potential in polymer engineering nanotechnology.