Effect of different plasticizers on mechanical, thermal, and barrier properties of corn starch/polyvinyl alcohol/rice husk flour based bio-composite films

Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Raipur, Raipur-492 010, Chhattisgarh, India Department of Chemistry, Rungta College of Engineering and Technology, Bhilai-490 020, Chhattisgarh, India E-mail: nirlipta.nitu@gmail.com, dpsingh.che@nitrr.ac.in Manuscript received online 30 March 2020, accepted 12 June 2020 The current research is intended to correlate the impact of glycerol, sorbitol, fructose as a plasticizer with different concentration (10, 20, 30, and 40%) on the properties of biodegradable corn-starch (CS)/polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/rice husk flour (RHF) based films. The film was prepared by solvent casting techniques and investigated for the structural, thermal, barrier and mechanical, properties of the produced films. The results indicated that the fructose based plasticized films displayed remarkable tensile strength than glycerol and sorbitol-based plasticized films. Regardless of plasticizer types, increment in plasticizer content enhances water vapor permeability from 5.755×10–10 to 9.760×10–10 g·m–1·s–1·Pa–1. Thermal resistance of the glycerol plasticized film was lower when contrasted with the sorbitol and fructose based plasticized film. The 10% fructose plasticized film indicated great attributes and provided the most extreme mechanical performance among the plasticizers utilized