Preparation And Properties Of Biodegradable Polymer Blended Film Based On Polyvinyl Alcohol And Tropical Fruit Waste Flour
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Date
2011-10
Authors
Ooi, Zhong Xian
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
In this study, a new polymer blends by blending tropical fruit waste flour with polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) using solution casting method was prepared and examined. Firstly, the rambutan waste flour (RWF) was selected to blend with PVOH. Plasticized biodegradable PVOH/RWF films at different weight ratio of PVOH and RWF content were developed and thus effect of plasticizing agents on the properties of resulting films was evaluated. Results showed that the glycerol-plasticized films exhibited higher elongation at break, but lower tensile strength and Young’s modulus than that of sorbitol-plasticized films, which mainly due to the better plasticizing effect of glycerol. Degradability test revealed that the weight loss of unplasticized PVOH/RWF films was lower than of glycerol- and sorbitol-plasticized PVOH/RWF films. Secondly, the effectiveness of glutaraldehyde (GLU) and hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) as crosslinking agents on PVOH/RWF films was studied and compared in the presence of glycerol as plasticizing agent. The tensile test results showed that the PVOH/RWF films crosslinked with HMTA exhibit slightly improvement in tensile strength and Young’s modulus, but lower elongation at break than that of GLU-crosslinked films, which attributed to the better crosslinking effect of HMTA as shown by the Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) results. HMTA-crosslinked film showed better water barrier properties as compared to GLU-crosslinked and non-crosslinked films. Natural weathering test revealed that the addition of 1.5 wt% glutaraldehyde and hexamethylenetetramine did not significantly affect the weatherability of the PVOH/RWF films, but the soil burial test showed that the weight loss of non-crosslinked films was higher than GLU- and HMTA-crosslinked films.
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Keywords
Biodegradable polymer blended film , based on polyvinyl alcohol