Investigation of the effect of alkyl Chain length on poly alkyl lactate Acrylate s and studies on pla Bionanocomposites

Abstract

The thesis presented encompasses the synthesis of lactic acid derivatives such as alkyl lactates and alkyl lactate acrylates, solution polymerization of alkyl lactate acrylates to synthesize poly(alkyl lactate acrylate)s and in-situ polymerization of poly(lactic acid)-halloysite nanotubes (PLA-HNT) and poly(lactic acid)-sepiolite (PLA-SEP) bionanocomposites (BNCs). Homologous series of alkyl lactates and alkyl lactate acrylates was synthesized by esterification reaction of higher alcohols namely hexanol, heptanol, octanol, nonanol, decanol, undecanol and dodecanol with lactic acid followed by acrylic acid respectively by following azeotropic distillation method. Poly(alkyl lactate acrylate)s was synthesized by free radical solution polymerization of alkyl lactate acrylates using cyclohexane as the solvent and 2,2and#1371;-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as the free radical initiator. Formation of alkyl lactates and alkyl lactate acrylates was confirmed by the formation of M+ peak in electron impact mass spectrometry (EI-MS). Further, formation of all the lactic acid derivatives and poly(alkyl lactate acrylate)s was confirmed by fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, proton and proton decoupled carbon nuclear magnetic resonance (1H-NMR and 13C-NMR) spectroscopic techniques. From the FT-IR spectra of the alkyl lactates a broad band corresponding to hydroxyl group was observed around 3448 cm-1 and in alkyl lactate acrylates the band corresponding to hydroxyl group was absent and band corresponding to olefinic double bond was present at 1635 cm-1 which confirmed the formation of alkyl lactate acrylates. In the FT-IR spectra of poly(alkyl lactate acrylate)s, the band corresponding to olefinic double bond was absent which confirmed the addition polymerization of alkyl lactate acrylates into poly(alkyl lactate acrylate)s newline