POLYVINYLALCOHOL FILMS: EFECCT OF MOLECULAR WEIGTH AND MICROCELULLOSE INCORPORATION

C.J.PÉREZ, V.A.ALVAREZ

´Los Cocos, Córdoba

Congreso; V Simposio Binacional Argentino-Chileno Archipol 2009; 2009

Universidad Nacional de Cordoba

In the last decades, poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) have received great attention due to their excellent physico-chemical properties whose make it an exceptional candidate for several applications (Lopez, 2001; Krumova, 2000). Although there are several works related with PVA and some of them including the effect of molecular weight on the spectrometric behavior (Abd 2002), there are no systematic studies of the effect of the molecular weight on the mechanical properties and water absorption of PVA films (Abd, 2002) PVA is a nontoxic, water-soluble, biodegradable and biocompatible synthetic polymer widely used in biomedical applications. This polymer has excellent film-forming ability; thermal stability; chemical resistance and good transparency and so that, it started to be used in membrane technologies (Chiang, 2002); however the application on this field is still limited due to their tall degree of swelling and solubility in water and it limited mechanical properties (Sriupayo, 2005). Those properties can be enhanced by the incorporation of reinforcement. The use of cellulose, having mechanical properties, as reinforcement is attractive due to environmental and economics concerns.  Improvements on thermal stability, tensile strength and water resistance by different whiskers incorporation were reported (Sriupayo, 2005; Kvien, 2007; García de Rodriguez; 2006) but the literature is still limited and incomplete.          The aim of this work was to prepare PVA/micro-cellulose fibers (MCF) composites and to analyze the effect of molecular weight and cellulose content on the mechanical, thermal and swelling behavior of PVA films.