The impact strengths of PLA and plasticized PLA at various loading were presented in Fig. 5. Neat PLA had
impact strength of 40 J/m. An improvement in impact strength or toughness was reported even at 3 wt.% of EPO
and approximately doubled at 15 wt.% of EPO in PLA. Adding up to 5 wt.% of ESO in PLA did not result much
improvement in PLA’s toughness. While EPO readily improve the toughness of PLA at low loading, comparable
toughness was reached when higher content of ESO at 10 and 15 wt.% was used.