Photodegradation behavior of poly(butylene succinate-co-butylene adipate)/ZnO nanocomposites

• ZnO nanoparticles are well distributed and dispersed in PBSA matrix.
• FT-IR, PGC-MS, DSC and SEM are used to characterize the photodegradation behavior.
• ZnO can stabilize the PBSA matrix during photodegradation.
• The possible structure of degradation products are analyzed using PGC-MS.

The photodegradation of PBSA and PBSA/ZnO nanocomposites with different ZnO loadings were studied in this paper. The PBSA/ZnO nanocomposites were prepared by melt-compounding process and the ZnO dispersion state within the PBSA matrix was analyzed by TEM. The reduction of molecular weight of PBSA nanocomposites is lower than that of the neat PBSA, which indicates more chain scission occured in neat PBSA. The chemical structure changes characterized by FTIR and PGC-MS showed that ZnO nanoparticles can stabilize the PBSA matrix. Carbonyl index and hydroxyl index of PBSA grew more significantly than PBSA nanocomposites. More degradation products accumulated in PBSA samples than in the PBSA nanocomposite samples. Thermal properties analyzed by DSC revealed a decrease of crystallization temperature in all samples, which is due to the formation of short chains after irradiation. In addition, the small fragments could recrystallize and increase the crystallinity. SEM images of sample surfaces revealed that PBSA sample had severer damages on surface than PBSA/ZnO nanocomposites. These results demonstrate that ZnO nanoparticles can hinder the photodegradation of PBSA.

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide