The Use of Thermal Techniques in the Characterization of Bio-Sourced Polymers

The public pressure about the problems derived from the environmental issues increasingly pushes the research areas, of both industrial and academic sectors, to design material architectures with more and more foundations and reinforcements derived from renewable sources. In these efforts, researchers make extensive and profound use of thermal analysis. Among the different techniques available, thermal analysis offers, in addition to high accuracy in the measurement, smartness of execution, allowing to obtain with a very limited quantity of material precious information regarding the property–structure correlation, essential not only in the production process, but overall, in the design one. Thus, techniques such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), differential thermal analysis (DTA), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were, are, and will be used in this transition from fossil feedstock to renewable ones, and in the development on new manufacturing processes such as those of additive manufacturing (AM). In this review, we report the state of the art of the last two years, as regards the use of thermal techniques in biopolymer design, polymer recycling, and the preparation of recyclable polymers as well as potential tools for biopolymer design in AM. For each study, we highlight how the most known thermal parameters, namely glass transition temperature (T(g)), melting temperature (T(f)), crystallization temperature (T(c)) and percentage (%c), initial decomposition temperature (T(i)), temperature at maximum mass loss rate (T(m)), and tan δ, helped the researchers in understanding the characteristics of the investigated materials and the right way to the best design and preparation.