As PLA is biodegradable polymer and obtained from natural resources.so what is degradable life of PLA
PLA biodegradability strongly depends on ageing conditions, especially the temperature employed. For temperatures inferior to about 60°C, the biodegradation is very very slow. But if the ageing temperature exceeds 60°C, the biodegradation is drastically improved, the critical parameter being the glass transition temperature of PLA (about 60°C).
For more details, see previous works carried out by my group (papers Deroine et al. for example).
Regards.
I completely agree with @Stéphane Bruzaud. The biodegradability at temperatures below 60 oC is very slow, it takes several years to biodegrade.
Regards
Vit
That is why PLA cannot be considered as biodegradable but only compostable in industrial conditions (not in home compost). This is crucial to make the distinction.
The PLA biodegradability depends on experimental conditions. The main factor affecting the PLA biodegradablity is the Tg (about 55°C) which conduces to a very very low biodegradability at room temperature but the kinetic strongly increases when the ageing temperature becomes higher than Tg. So the PLA is considered as biocompostable in industrial compost and not really biodegradable.
See the article that I published in 2014 (Polym. Degrad. Stab.).
It is more rapidily compostable than degradable. You can also speed up the biodegraable charater by adding several additives such as plasticizers, nanoparticles, and so on. All those additives are also needed to increase the overall performance of PLA.
it take 100s of years and depends environmental condition and chemical components
Physical ageing at T above Tg will help but it is no enough alone.
The degradation rate depends also of the thickness of the material (film or plate) and agree, only at higher temperature (more than 55 Celsius degree) can be degraded at a convenient rate.
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