Morphological Structures, Mechanical, Thermal and Optical Properties of PVA/HNT Bionanocomposite Films

Abstract

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.