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International Conference on

Recent Trends in Environmental Sustainability

ESCON22/SWMR/06
Synthesis and utilization of bioplastics as a green approach in materials for green
environment

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Nadia Akram *, Amina Shafi
1 Department of Chemistry, Government College University Faisalabad, Faisalabad 38000,
Pakistan
Correspondence: nadiaakram@gcuf.edu.pk

Abstract
The diverse and ubiquitous consumption of polymers urges the necessity to make these
materials easily available. However, the excessively used petrochemicalbased polymers such
as Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) are non-biodegradable, which is a motivation to modify it with
“green” alternatives. In the present study, PVC (MW = 48 000 gmol-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 (TGA) 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 (DMA) and the value of 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.
Keywords: Green Environment, Bioplastics, Poly Vinyl Chloride, Biowastes, TGA, DMA

Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus

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