Production and Characterization of Polymer Blends and Assessment of Biodegradation

Abstract

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a microbial polyester well known for its high glass transition and melting temperatures, is found in the intracellular granule within microbes. Herein, we have attempted to synthesize PHB along with xyloglucan (XG) as a copolymer to lower glass transition and melting temperature. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM) analyses were used to investigate the characteristics of blend films. We found that the addition of XG resulted in increased moisture absorption of the blend films. XG-PHB blend of ratio 80 : 20 showed the highest tensile strength and was subjected to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis. The results revealed that the XG-PHB blend has a lower melting point (121.3°C) and lesser crystalline degree (17.26%) than PHB. TGA results showed that blend film was more thermally stable than PHB. An effort to understand and analyze microorganisms that can produce and biodegrade copolymers such as PHB-XG is the main effort of this study which unfolds “new hope” in the field of biodegradable alternatives to plastics.