Browsing by Author "Bilal Ahmad Chheena"

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    Grafting of starch with methyl methacrylate for the preparation of biodegradable polymers
    (University of Management and Technology, 2015) Bilal Ahmad Chheena
    Grafting of starch with methyl methacrylate was carried out using free radical mechanism. Free radicals were generated by the thermal disintegration of potassium per sulphate at the temperature of 60 degrees celsius. A variety of experimental methods were investigated to check the effect of different parameters such as (temperature, amount of starch, quantity of monomer) for efficient grafting. The optimum temperature found for good grafting was 60 degrees Celsius. The initial amount of starch was taken as 0.75g. Keeping the amount of starch constant, the quantity of monomer was reduced gradually from 10ml to 2ml in portions of 5ml and 3 ml. The controlled biodegradability of grafted product was obtained by using 3ml monomer in 0.75g starch. This grafted polymer showed 27.29% biodegradability in 60 days. The nanocomposite of starch grafted methyl methacrylate was prepared by incorporating 0.02g Ni nanoparticles in reaction flask 15 minutes prior to the completion of reaction time. The starch grafted polymer and nanocomposite of this were fully characterized by SEM, FTIR, TGA and DSC techniques. Soil burial method was applied to estimate the biodegradability of samples. The polymer containing Ni nanoparticles was less biodegradable than without nanoparticle. Such polymers can be efficiently used as packaging material for food items.