Morphological and Mechanical Properties of Poly (Vinyl Alcohol) Doped with Inorganic Fillers

A number of polymer composite films using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as the preorganized polymer matrix were synthesized embedding different metal salts of transition elements like copper, cobalt, nickel, iron, cadmium, and zinc by a biomimetic route. The metal salts present in composites were reduced in situ to metallic form. The composites were characterized by FTIR, SEM, and EDAX. The SEM analysis confirmed the presence of nano-sized metal particles uniformly distributed in the polymer matrix. Mechanical properties were measured for various composite and PVA films. Significant improvement in some of the mechanical properties of polymer composites was realized in comparison with PVA.