ABSTRACT The packaging industry is imposing increasingly stringent requirements for the mechanical toughness and barrier properties of film materials. Poly(lactic acid) (PLA), as an eco‐friendly material with biodegradability and basic mechanical strength, is considered an ideal candidate for packaging films. However, its high cost, inherent brittleness, and unsatisfactory water vapor barrier properties limit its practical application in the packaging field. Different from previous researches that merely explored the compatibilization, mechanical, and thermal properties of PLA/PBAT blends, this work adopts low‐cost modified starch (MST) as the matrix component. MST was plasticized and modified with epoxidized soybean oil (ESO). Poly(butylene adipate‐ co ‐terephthalate) was incorporated as the toughening phase, organo‐montmorillonite (OMMT) was added as the barrier filler, and POE‐g‐GMA was used as the interfacial modifier. The multi‐component composite films were fabricated by melt extrusion‐blown film technology. The results indicated that when the contents of PBAT and OMMT were fixed at 30 wt% and 5 wt%, respectively, the resultant composite films exhibited an impact strength of 4.21 kJ/m 2 , an elongation at break of 4.8%, and a water vapor permeability coefficient of 2.82 g mm/(m 2 24 h). The developed system realizes balanced improvement of toughness and barrier performance, providing a feasible strategy for the large‐scale application of PLA‐based films in the packaging industry.
Luo et al. (Mon,) studied this question.