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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Natural phenolic compounds: Anti-oxidants or pro-oxidants for biopolyesters?

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description

In this work, different naturally occurring phenolic compounds, such as Thymol (Th), Vanillic acid (VA) and Ferulic Acid (FA), have been considered as UV stabilizers against the photo-oxidative degradation of polylactic acid (PLA). Particularly, in order to explore the effectiveness of the naturally occurring stabilizers, thin PLA-based films, containing different amount of the stabilizers, have been formulated and subjected to accelerate UVB exposure. The preliminary characterizations suggest that the all considered stabilizers exert a plasticizing action and the overall crystallinity of the samples is slightly reduced. If the considered stabilizers are added at low concentration, they exert a protection action, but if their content overcome a specific threshold, are able to exert a pronounced pro-degradation action. Overall, in this work, the concentration-dependent anti-/pro- oxidant activity of used naturally occurring phenolic compounds has been accurately investigated and reported.