Study of the Physical Properties and Biodegradability of Potato-Starch Based Plastics

Due to the exceptional growth of environmental menace pollution caused by the disposal of used plastics in the world today, there exist the needs to produce biodegradable plastics from cheap and renewable feed stocks. This research work focuses on the synthesis and characterization of potato starch based plastics (biodegradable) using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as cross linker. PVA was varied in mass ratios of 15, 30, 45 and 80% in the thermoplastic starch (TPS)/PVA blend. Mechanical properties (such as tensile strength, percentage elongation, young modulus) and specific gravity of the blends were studied. The results showed that 80% PVA plastic had the highest tensile strength, elongation and lowest young modulus of 384.47kPa, 347.27%, and 310.10kPa respectively. The specific gravity of the whole blends was 1.2. The elongation at break increases with increasing concentration of PVA, having the least value of 0% and highest value of 481.82% for 15 % and 80 % PVA plastic respectively. In addition, the results obtained showed increase in the values of the properties of the samples with respect to thermal conductivity, acid, base and water resistance with increase in composition of PVA. Biodegradability test was done via soil-burial method and the PVA/TPS blend was noted to be biodegradable.