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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #127710
Title: INTERFACIAL TENSION OF EASTAR BIO COPOLYESTER 14766/POLYSTYRENE BLENDS

Author
item Biresaw, Girma
item Carriere, Craig

Submitted to: American Chemical Society Abstracts
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/11/2002
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Eastar Bio Copolyester 14766 (EBC) is a biodegradable polymer with a potential application in the development of biodegradable and biocompatible materials from blends with synthetic and/or natural polymers. To date, there have been a limited number of studies on blends of EBC with corn and wheat starch. There are no studies on blends of EBC with synthetic polymers. Also, the interfacial properties of blends of EBC with synthetic or natural polymers have not been investigated. In this work, the interfacial tension (IT) of blends of EBC with polystyrene (PS) were obtained experimentally using the imbedded fiber retraction (IFR) method and computationally from the surface energy (SE) of EBC and PS using the geometric mean (GM), harmonic mean (HM), and Antonoff's expressions. The IT of EBC/PS was also determined from the solubility parameters (SP) of EBC and PS. The results showed that the GM and IFR methods gave the lowest and highest values of 0.1 and 12.6 dyn/cm, respectively. The IT values increased in the order: GM < HM << SP < Antonoff << IFR. The difference between computed and experimental values could be the presence of "additives" in commercial polymers, which will have no impact on computed values.