Rheological Properties of dispersed Bionanocomposite of PLA-g-CNC/PLA

Cellulose Nanocrystals (CNCS) are natural source nanorods extracted from cotton. They are highly hydrophilic and dispersion of CNCs into PLA matrix is a great challenge. To overcome this limitation, surface grafting of CNCs with chains of the same chemistry as the matrix is an emerging technique to obtain a dispersed nanocomposite. CNCs were surface modified by ring opening polymerization (ROP) of L-lactide (LA) monomers. Composition of these surface grafted Nanocrystals with PLA matrix resulted in a uniform dispersion after optimizing reaction conditions. Different compositions of modified and unmodified CNCs were produced by solution mixing using chloroform as solvent to see the effect of CNC content on dispersion and rheological results. FESEM was used to observe dispersion of CNCs in PLA matrix. Rheological analysis were performed to evaluate nanoparticle distribution and any possible structures.