Polylactic Acid-Based (Nano) Composites and Their Biomedical Applications

Polylactic acid (PLA) is a high-demand biopolymer for diverse applications. Due to its characteristics, such as biodegradability, biocompatibility, and mechanical properties, the application of this biopolymer has expanded to the biomedical, packaging, textile, structural, and automotive industries. However, there is one major drawback for this biopolymer, such as less desirable mechanical properties compared to petroleum-based polymers such as polyethylene, polypropylene, etc. Several strategies are reviewed for improving the characteristics of PLA. In this study, reinforcements and plasticizers are added to PLA using different fabrication methods to produce PLA (nano) composites. Some important parameters that affect the mechanical properties of PLA composites are reinforcement type, loading and size, dispersion of reinforcement additives in PLA, plasticizer type, and molecular weight of PLA.