Abstract

Stearic acid (SA), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and malic acid (MA) have been used to modify the surface of waste gypsum to develop corresponding poly (butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) composites. According to the mechanical properties, MA-treated gypsum (MA-gypsum) showed the best performance, whereas SA-gypsum showed the worst performance. In contrast to SA and PEG (having –COOH and –OH as polar functional groups, respectively), the presence of both –OH and –COOH in MA is responsible for the superior surface treatment of gypsum and its better dispersion in the polymer matrix (as revealed by FE-SEM analyses). The presence of long aliphatic chain in SA is supposed to inhibit the dispersion of SA-gypsum. Further, the performance of MA-gypsum/PBAT was enhanced by adding polylactic acid (PLA). The maximum optimized contents of MA-gypsum and PLA are 20 and 7.5 wt% for developing a high-performance PBAT composite.

Keywords: gypsum;surface modification;PBAT;melt-mixing;mechanical properties