Humayun Irshad2016-05-112016-05-112015https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/1933Supervisor: Dr. Sohail NadeemThe graft polymerization of starch with monomer like acrylic acid was carried out using free radical polymerization mechanism. To generate free radicals, ammonium per sulphate was thermally disintegrated by heating it in aqueous solution at the temperature of 80 degrees celsius. Different experimental methods were performed to investigate the effect of different parameters like (temperature, amount of starch and the ratio of monomer acrylic acid on grafting. The temperature of 90 degrees celsius was found to be optimum for good grafting. The amount of starch was taken as 0.75g in experimentally designed method. The best grafted product was obtained by adding 3ml monomer acrylic acid in 0.75g starch. For the preparation of nanocomposite of starch grafted acrylic acid 0.02g of Ni nanoparticles were incorporated in reaction kettle at 15 minutes prior to completion of the reaction time. SEM, TGA/DSC, FTIR techniques were used to characterize the grafted polymer and its nanocomposite. To investigate the biodegradability soil burial method was applied. The biodegradability of 23.21% in 60 days was shown by starch grafted acrylic acid polymer while its nanocomposite showed 16.19% biodegradability in same period of time.MPhill ThesisGraft polymerizationAcrylic acidThesis