Molecular Dynamic Evaluation of starch-PLA blends nanocomposite with organoclay by proton NMR relaxometry

Starch and PLA were used alone and in blends to prepare nanostructured materials using both hydrophilic and organophilic clays, and PVA. All nanostructured materials were obtained by the solution intercalation method using water and chloroform as solvents. These systems were characterized by using conventional X-ray diffraction (XRD), conventional NMR and the non-conventional fast field cycling (FFC) NMR technique. The spin-lattice relaxation times were measured as a function of the Larmor frequency. The FFC results showed that the starch has only one relaxation time related to the amorphous region. PLA hybrids presented two distinct spin-lattice relaxation times. The blends of the two polymers also showed two relaxation times. The renormalized Rouse formalism was applied to describe the polymer molecular dynamics behavior in the studied systems containing starch. By adding clay or PVA, differences could be observed in relaxation time corresponding to the more amorphous region, indicating that, when adding clay and PVA, the effect that each has on the dynamics of the mixture is cancelled out.