Improvement of β‐cyclodextrin/cardanol inclusion complex for the thermal‐oxidative stability and environmental‐response antioxidation releasing property of polylactic acid

Abstract In this article, a β‐cyclodextrin(CD)/cardanol (CA) inclusion complex (IC) was fabricated by co‐precipitation method, which was used to guarantee excellent thermal oxidative stability and environmental‐response antioxidation releasing property of PLA. The results showed that CA was successfully immobilized into β‐CD with a stoichiometric ratio of 1:1, and the immobilization inhibited the migrant of CA from PLA during storage, resulting in the enhancement of antioxidant life of CA in PLA. Thus, PLA stabilized by IC (PLA/IC) maintained higher oxidation onset temperature (OOT) and molecular weight after long‐term thermal oxidative aging. Moreover, CA releasing comparison from PLA/IC and PLA stabilized by CA (PLA/CA) in food stimulant suggested that PLA/IC released CA faster than PLA/CA when PLA contacted with food stimulants due to the solubilization of β‐CD for CA, which would induce the quicker antioxidation of CA in food. In a word, IC can make PLA with longer anti‐oxidative stability during storage and quicker environmental‐response antioxidation releasing property during usage, showing strong potential as an active food‐packaging materials.