Influence of cornstarch on thermomechanical behavior of poly(vinyl) chloride bioplastics

The diverse and ubiquitous consumption of polymers urges the necessity to make these materials easily available. However, the excessively used petrochemical-based polymers such as poly(vinyl) chloride (PVC) are nonbiodegradable, which is a motivation to modify it with “green” alternatives. In the present study, PVC (M_w = 48 000 g mol⁻¹⁾ has been incorporated with cornstarch (CS) to synthesize a series of 25 samples of bioplastics in addition to blank polymer samples. The films of five various thicknesses (0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, and 1.0 mm) have been synthesized using in situ polymerization. Each sample of pure PVC film and bioplastic has been induced with different concentrations of CS in the range of 1–5 wt %. The synthesized samples were subjected to the structural characterization by using Fourier transform infrared. Thermogravimetric analysis has demonstrated the three-step degradation with the improved stability of 250 °C. The 3% concentration of CS has shown the optimum storage modulus (E′) of 1 660 MPa from dynamic mechanical analysis and Tan δ as 0.50. The swelling test performed using water has shown an induction of hydrophilicity in PVC up to 4%. CS-induced bioplastics can be a potential ecofriendly alternative of conventional polymers.