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Thermal Properties of Electrospun Poly(Lactic Acid) Membranes

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 51; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00222348.2011.597325

1525-609X

Vítor Sencadas, Carlos M. Costa, Gabriela Botelho, Cristina Caparrós, Clarisse Ribeiro, José Luís Gómez Ribelles, S. Lanceros‐Méndez,

Nanocomposite Films for Food Packaging

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) electrospun membranes were obtained by electrospinning and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and thermal analysis. The polymer membranes showed a random fiber distribution with a mean diameter of 1 μm (±300 nm). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) experiments showed that the membranes had a glass transition, cold crystallization, and melting temperatures of 54, 90, and 151°C, respectively. The kinetic study of thermal degradation of PLA under a nitrogen atmosphere was performed by means of thermogravimetry (TGA). It was found that the thermal decomposition kinetics of PLA could be interpreted in terms of a multi-step degradation mechanism. Several theoretical models were applied to the TGA data. The activation energies obtained by the Broido and Ozawa–Flynn–Wall (OFW) models were in good agreement with the value of the activation energy calculated by the Kissinger method.