| Popis: |
The effect of material composition and nanofiller contents on mechanical, thermal and optical properties along with morphological structures was evaluated in this chapter. The presence of glycerol (GL) as a typical plasticiser reduced Young’s modulus and tensile strength of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/GL blends, as well as improved the elongation at break when compared with those of neat PVA films. This trend was completely opposite to the effect of starch (ST) for PVA/ST blends. Moreover, tensile strength, Young’s modulus and thermal properties in term of melting temperature (Tm), decomposition temperatures and weight loss of PVA/ST/GL/halloysite nanotube (HNT) bionanocomposites were enhanced significantly with the incorporation of 0.25–1 wt% HNTs due to good nanofiller dispersion to form intercalated bionanocomposite structures. Such properties of bionanocomposite films appeared to decline beyond 1 wt% HNTs due to their typical agglomeration, as evidenced by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) in spite of being still better than those of PVA counterparts. |
