Cellulose blends with polylactic acid or polyamide 6 from solution blending: Microstructure and polymer interactions

The use of cellulose in polymer blends is limited due to missing thermoplasticity and incompatibility with most synthetic polymers. In this work, a solvent-based rapid precipitation method was used to overcome these limitations. Blends of cellulose with polylactic acid or polyamide 6 were prepared using a previously presented ionic liquid-based solution-precipitation method. The structural properties of the blends and the specific intermolecular interactions were studied by FTIR, DSC, XRD and SEM. With polylactic acid, cellulose formed single-phase amorphous blends with intense intermolecular hydrogen bonding detected by FTIR. Less pronounced interactions were concluded for polyamide 6 and cellulose from FTIR, DSC and XRD, resulting in a two-phase morphological structure with continuous cellulose and dispersed polyamide 6 domains. Homogeneous blend formation between polylactic acid and cellulose could be promising for further material developments.