Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 14, 2026

Methods of Soil Resampling to Monitor Changes in the Chemical Concentrations of Forest Soils
Published on: November 25, 2016
Soil burial-induced chemical and thermal changes in starch/poly (lactic acid) composites
Shanshan Lv1, Yanhua Zhang1, Jiyou Gu1
1Key Laboratory of Bio-based Material Science and Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Material Science and Engineering, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, PR China.
Abstract:
Soil burial degradation was confirmed to be an efficient waste disposal method for the biodegradable materials with short service life, such as starch/poly (lactic acid) (PLA) composite. The biodegradation behavior about chemical and thermal properties of starch/PLA composite was analyzed by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), infrared microscopy (IRM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). XPS and IRM results indicated that the biodegradation of PLA occurred at the ester groups in PLA chains. XPS demonstrated the cleavage of CO linkages between glucose rings in starch. DSC and TGA results showed that the starch/PLA composite degraded faster than the pure PLA. During the soil burial degradation, the glass transition temperature of starch/PLA composite exhibited an obviously decrease while it had a slight variation for PLA. The thermal stability of starch/PLA composite shifted towards to that of PLA when they were subjected to soil burial for the same time. It is established that the starch can accelerate the degradation of PLA-based materials, which will enlarge the markets of biodegradable PLA materials used for short service life products.
More Related Videos
09:31Sustained Administration of β-cell Mitogens to Intact Mouse Islets Ex Vivo Using Biodegradable Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) Microspheres
Published on: November 5, 2016
13:46A Facile and Eco-friendly Route to Fabricate PolyLactic Acid Scaffolds with Graded Pore Size
Published on: October 17, 2016
Related Concept Videos
The Soil Ecosystem
Solution Composition During Acid/Base Titrations
The α0 and α1 values...
Composition of Polyprotic Acid Solutions as a Function of pH
A graph with the alpha values is plotted against the volume of...
Classifying Matter by Composition
According to its composition, the matter can be classified into two broad categories — pure substances and mixtures.
A pure substance is a form of matter that has a constant composition throughout with uniform properties. For example, any sample of sucrose has the same composition and same physical properties, such as melting point, color, and sweetness, regardless of the source from which it is isolated.
A mixture is composed of two or...
Physical and Chemical Properties of Matter
Chemical Equations