Effect of Processing Conditions on Process-Induced Degradation of Poly(Lactic Acid) During Single-Screw Extrusion
Corresponding Author
Ineke Velghe
Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Campus Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Correspondence:
Ineke Velghe ([email protected])
Frederik Desplentere ([email protected])
Contribution: Data curation (lead), Formal analysis (lead), Funding acquisition (equal), Investigation (lead), Methodology (equal), Project administration (equal), Software (lead), Validation (lead), Visualization (lead), Writing - original draft (lead), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorBart Buffel
Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Campus Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (supporting), Formal analysis (supporting), Funding acquisition (equal), Methodology (equal), Project administration (equal), Resources (equal), Supervision (equal), Visualization (supporting), Writing - original draft (supporting), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorVeerle Vandeginste
Department of Materials Engineering, Surface and Interface Engineered Materials, KU Leuven, Campus Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Methodology (equal), Supervision (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorWim Thielemans
Department of Chemical Engineering, Sustainable Materials Lab, KU Leuven, Campus Kulak, Kortrijk, Belgium
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Methodology (equal), Resources (equal), Supervision (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Frederik Desplentere
Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Campus Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Correspondence:
Ineke Velghe ([email protected])
Frederik Desplentere ([email protected])
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Funding acquisition (equal), Methodology (equal), Project administration (equal), Resources (equal), Supervision (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Ineke Velghe
Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Campus Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Correspondence:
Ineke Velghe ([email protected])
Frederik Desplentere ([email protected])
Contribution: Data curation (lead), Formal analysis (lead), Funding acquisition (equal), Investigation (lead), Methodology (equal), Project administration (equal), Software (lead), Validation (lead), Visualization (lead), Writing - original draft (lead), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorBart Buffel
Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Campus Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (supporting), Formal analysis (supporting), Funding acquisition (equal), Methodology (equal), Project administration (equal), Resources (equal), Supervision (equal), Visualization (supporting), Writing - original draft (supporting), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorVeerle Vandeginste
Department of Materials Engineering, Surface and Interface Engineered Materials, KU Leuven, Campus Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Methodology (equal), Supervision (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorWim Thielemans
Department of Chemical Engineering, Sustainable Materials Lab, KU Leuven, Campus Kulak, Kortrijk, Belgium
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Methodology (equal), Resources (equal), Supervision (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Frederik Desplentere
Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, Campus Bruges, Bruges, Belgium
Correspondence:
Ineke Velghe ([email protected])
Frederik Desplentere ([email protected])
Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Funding acquisition (equal), Methodology (equal), Project administration (equal), Resources (equal), Supervision (equal), Writing - review & editing (equal)
Search for more papers by this authorFunding: This work was supported by Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (1S16122).
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of processing conditions on the degradation of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) during single-screw extrusion. A 25 full factorial design of experiments was used to systematically screen significant main and interaction effects caused by five processing conditions: the moisture content in the granules (dried–undried), processing temperature (190°C–230°C), length of the compression zone of the screw (6D–11D), diameter of the capillary die (2–4 mm), and screw rotation speed (20–40 rpm). The effect of 32 extrusion combinations on the molecular weight of PLA (102,850 Da) was statistically analyzed. The molecular weight after processing varied between 100,750 and 66,500 Da and was determined by four main effects and three interaction effects. A high moisture content had the largest effect (−17,846 Da), followed by a high processing temperature of 230°C (−7260 Da), a small die diameter of 2 mm (−1849 Da) and a low screw rotation speed of 20 rpm (−4730 Da). Aside from main effects, the importance of studying interaction effects was emphasized, since the moisture content influenced degradation caused by temperature (−4019 Da), screw speed (4621 Da), and die geometry (1993 Da).
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open Research
Data Availability Statement
The data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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