Bio-based polymers have garnered significant attention as a viable alternative to fossil-fuel based materials, and are suitable in a wide range of commodity polymer applications including single-use products. These materials have been shown to exhibit similar mechanical properties to conventional polymers, and may degrade under the right conditions. This work reports recent results on the rheology, degradation and processing of a series of bio-based polymer blends. Both shear and extensional rheology are performed to characterize the flow properties of the blends. Transient rheology is used to quantify degradation, via degradation kinetics, under typical thermal and mechanical processing histories. Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) is used to verify these results. Rheological and degradation results are used to determine suitable blend compositions and processing conditions for film casting. Subsequent testing examines their thermal and mechanical properties as a function of blend composition and processing conditions.

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