Abstract
Poly (butylene succinate) (PBS) is one of the most common biodegradable plastic polymers that has recently been used in the green environmental field. Enhancement of physicochemical characteristics of these polymers by using plant-based materials like Baobab (Adansonia digitata) will improve its industrial application. This study evaluated Baobab (Adansonia digitata) powder (BP) and PBS composites under various ratios (PBS/BP: 90/10, 80/20, 70/30, 60/40, and 50/50 wt%) for their thermo-mechanical and other physicochemical properties for the industrial application. The nanoscale morphological and elemental characterization were also measured by scanning electron microscope-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). The results revealed that PBS/BP blends of 90/10 and 50/50 showed a significantly reduced melting temperature (Tm) up to 94°C (p < 0.05) compared to PBS (114°C). Also, the dynamic viscosity, storage modulus, and loss modulus showed a significant decrease with increasing the ratio of BP in PBS/BP composite, which confirmed faster degradation than the pure PBS. In conclusion, the novel PBS/BP biomaterial is recommended for use as a carbon source for denitrification processes, as an eco-friendly faster degradable natural filler-based polymer. Besides, they could be use in food packaging and biomedical industries.
Highlights
Using eco-friendly natural materials to decrease the environmental pollution exchange via emerging replacements of petroleum plastics with biodegradable materials has become one of the global key areas (Ramesh et al, 2017)
The obtained crystalline structure results showed that the blends were just a numeral superposition and a physical mixture of polybutylene succinate (PBS) and Baobab (Adansonia digitata) powder (BP) with a reduced pure PBS crystallinity (Sadeghi et al, 2021) suggests faster degradation of the blends than pure PBS
It was observed from the Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectra that the absorption bands assigned to functional groups showed a greater degree of similarity between the pure PBS and the PBS/BP blend at a higher wavenumber range (4,000–1,750 cm−1), with more pronounced differences at lower wavenumber range (1,750–400 cm−1). For both the pure PBS and PBS/BP blends, the absorption bands observed at 3,435 and 2,945 cm−1 could attributes to the elongation vibration of the O−H and asymmetric stretching vibration of −CH2− groups, respectively (Zhu et al, 2015; Li et al, 2019)
Summary
Using eco-friendly natural materials to decrease the environmental pollution exchange via emerging replacements of petroleum plastics with biodegradable materials has become one of the global key areas (Ramesh et al, 2017). The exponential growth in human population, urbanization, industrialization, exploration of natural resources, and pollutants’ exchange via transboundary movements were identified as the main causes of environmental pollution (Ukaogo et al, 2020). Environmental pollution has remained a global challenge as multiple sources constantly contribute. The environmental pollutions from different sources such as fuel and chemicals industries (including plastics) showed negative impacts on world marine production (Li et al, 2016; Barboza et al, 2018). Otherwise known as “super environmental deteriorators,” have an estimated annual production of 360 million tons in 2018 and a forecast of attaining 500 million tons by 2025 (Lebreton and Andrady, 2019; Rafiqah et al, 2021). Some facts are that about 50% of the total plastics produced are single-use every year, out of which 500 billion single-use plastic bags are used globally: 700 plastic bags/year/person (Vuleta, 2021)
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