Biopolymer Composites - Its Thermokinetic Studies

Abstract

Attention has been drawn by researchers to offer potential opportunities for the economic utilization of agro-industrial residues. Sugarcane bagasse, which is also called as canechaff is a byproduct of sugarcane industry, has been used as a lignocellulosic material to prepare composites by polymerizing with either phenols or substituted phenols and formaldehyde in acid medium. The formation of the composites have been successfully reported from its structural information by their various spectral techniques like UV-Vis, FTIR, and NMR. Thermogravimetric analysis of the composites have been taken in a nitrogen atmosphere with a heating rate of 10 C/min. The analysis of the thermograms have been done by a novel computerized Lotus package method. Various kinetic models have been used to know the thermal strength as well as the degradation mechanism of the composites at different temperatures. The report reveals that the composites with higher weight percentage of biomass show less percentage of decomposition, hence more stable.