Properties of Agricultural Films Prepared from Biodegradable Poly(Butylene Succinate) Adding Natural Sorbent and Fertilizer

Abstract

Lemon basil (LB) seeds are natural sorbent that would be a good candidate to apply for agricultural application. This study developed a new composite material by compounding biodegradable poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) with grinded LB particles (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt%) and hot pressing into composite films. Ammonium sulfate of 10 phr was loaded as fertilizer. Mechanical and thermal properties as well as moisture sorption and ammonium ion release in water of the composite films were investigated. Composites were characterized by FTIR and SEM. It was found that moisture sorption was enhanced dramatically with respect to LB content. The improved sorption allowed ammonium sulfate to be released faster but reached equilibrium at lower concentration, which the sorption kinetics was fit well following the Pseudo-second order model. Biodegradation of composite films was found to improve in the soil burial test. Nevertheless, adding these fillers caused composite films to be more brittle.