Rheological and kinetic studies of low density polyetyhlene (LDPE) – chitosan biocomposite film

Abstract

The amount of plastic waste has always increased over the years and caused many problems in the environment because of its poor degradation rate characteristics. Recently, the interest in biodegradable polymer to substitute these synthetic plastic materials has been increased. Biocomposite materials have better biodegradability rate and can be utilized for several applications, such as packaging, agriculture, biomedical and healthcare. Chitosan as natural polymer that has good biodegradability can be combined with low density polyethylene (LDPE) to improve its mechanical properties. The LDPE-chitosan biocomposites were made by mixing chitosan and LDPE with maleic anhydride as compatibilizer and perbutyl Z as an initiator. In this study, the decomposition kinetic and thermal behavior of low density polyethylene (LDPE)-chitosan biocomposites were investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The residual weight of biocomposites after decomposition process was analyzed. The samples were heated in the range of temperature from 25 °C to 500 °C and at different heating rates of 5, 10, 15, 20 °C/min, respectively. The result shows that activation energy decreased along with the increasing of chitosan concentration. This result indicates that the LDPE-chitosan biocomposite is a promising candidate for substitution of synthetic plastic.