Biodegradable PBAT, PBS and PHBV polymers characterization for porous structure: further steps to sustainable plastics

Abstract Plastic pollution is one of the main issues of the modern era. When plastic is wrongly disposed of, it can be found in contaminated water, land, and even in the air. One of the solutions to tackle plastic con-tamination in the world is introducing polymers that require fewermaterials to fulfill the same function in addition to biodegradable and biobased options. Biodegradable polymers tackle end-of-life pollution when wrongly discarded, and biobased polymers use fewer or none fossil-based resources. In this study, we characterize the bioplastics Polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT), Polybutylene succinate(PBS), and Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV) as further steps to stage the features of promising alternatives to currently utilized plastics. We access the chemical, thermal and mechanical characteristics of commercially available PBAT, PBS, and PHBV polymers.These results help us to understand purity, process behavior, and per-ceive different porous morphology. In addition, we successfully produce porous materials using a green process with carbon dioxide. Because of their respective features, all three polymers resulted in microcellularporous, but PBAT and PBS resulted in closed cells and PHBV opencells. Since each polymer has different thermal properties, the process temperature follows their respective melting temperature.In order to see the morphology of each sample, the porous material was cut and analyzed under a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The possibility to make porous samples with different morphology also adds value to the polymers and introduces new options to fill more applications.