Microstructure and physical properties of poly(lactic acid)/polycaprolactone/rice straw lightweight bio-composite foams for wall insulation.

Using polylactic acid (PLA) as the green wall insulation materials have the advantages of environmental protection and renewable, but they are not widely used due to poor performance. To solve this problem, azodicarbonamide (AC) used as the foaming agent and PLA/rice straw (RS) bio-composite foams were processed using the moulded foaming method. And degradable polycaprolactone (PCL) was added to improve the performance of foams. After the addition of 40 wt% PCL, the impact strength, compression strength and water resistance of the foams were improved by 357.7 %, 277.1 % and 803.9 %, respectively. All foams exhibited excellent insulation performance of 0.038–0.040w/(m·k). Thus, this study provides an effective way to resource utilization of crop waste and prepare high-performance wall insulation foam materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]