Lignosulfonate interleaved layered double hydroxide: A novel green organoclay for bio-related polymer

New organic inorganic layered double hydroxide (LDH) organoclays are assembled through coprecipitation with lignosulfonate (LS) interleaved inorganic host structure sheets. The biopolymer is found to accommodate the interlayer space adopting a bilayer molecular arrangement resulting in a basal spacing of 2.54 nm. However the crystallinity of the resulting bio-organoclay is weak, probably due to the difficulty of the inorganic sheets to be built on amorphous polymer chain, the latter inducing low structural ordering. An organoclay of composition Zn2Al/LS is subsequently used as filler in three bio-related polyesters, poly(lactic) acid (PLA), poly(butylene) succinate (PBS) and poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT). Melt polymer extrusion using 5 wt.% organoclay loading yields polyester nanocomposite with a nanocomposite structure largely intercalated for both PLA and PBS (Δd (expansion) > 6 nm) while a non miscible structure is obtained for PBAT. The incorporation of hydrophilic Zn2Al/LS platelets decreases the water/polymer contact angle of about 10° for the LDH/LS PBAT composite only. A strong increase of the complex viscosity |η*| is observed for both nanocomposites Zn2Al/LS PLA and PBS compared to the polyester itself. This is explained on the basis of a chain extender behavior of the intercalated Zn2Al/LS platelets towards polymer chains as evidenced on the Cole Cole representation showing an increase of the real viscosity in the low-ω region. In opposition a strong decrease in |η*| is observed for PBAT, underlining a plasticizing effect of the organoclay filler. Comparatively, the thermal stability of PLA is slightly enhanced with an increase of T0.5 value while PBS and PBAT bio-nanocomposites degrade at slightly lower temperature.