35th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE of THE POLYMER PROCESSING SOCIETY, İzmir, Türkiye, 26 - 30 Mayıs 2019
The remarkable consumption and environmental concerns related to
the utilization of fossil based resources have led researchers to focus
on renewable raw materials. Lignocellulosic biomass, the fibrous part of
plants with a complex matrix comprising different polysaccharides,
mainly cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin, is the most abundant,
inexpensive, non-starch renewable source in the world. In the present
study, hemicellulose, which was obtained from corn cobs by alkali
extraction method (with a yield of 30%), was used to produce
biodegradable film by extrusion followed by rolling process and solvent
casting techniques. The morphological, mechanical and thermal properties
were investigated within these two techniques while the thicknesses of
films were comparable. The effect of extrusion temperature (75, 90˚C)
and screw speed (50, 100 rpm) on film properties were also investigated.
Homogenous and crack free films were obtained by extrusion for all
conditions. Discontinuous film formation was observed by solvent casted
method even they were observed as homogenous and crack free via scanning
electron microscopy. The onsets of thermal degradation temperature for
solvent casted and extruded films were determined via thermal
gravimetric analysis at 300°C. Increasing the extrusion temperature had a
slightly positive effect on the mechanical properties of films, whereas
screw speed did not have a noticeable effect (p>0.05). While the
toughness of the extruded films was 13 MJ/m3, that of the solvent casted
films was 5 MJ/m3. The elongation at break values of the extruded and
solvent casted films were 28% and 11%, respectively.