Radiation modification and characterization of polyvinyl alcohol/starch/citric acid/glycerol bioblend film

Blend films of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with starch (St) were obtained by casting method. The effect of different contents of glycerol (Glyc) and citric acid (CA) was investigated. The successful preparations of different compositions were shown by FTIR analysis. The bioblend film of PVA/St/CA/Glyc with a composition of (2:1:1/10 vol %) was selected due to its water resistance, higher mechanical properties, and good thermal stability than other prepared bioblend films. Further improvements were obtained by irradiation with gamma rays at a dose of 10 kGy, where the water resistance was highly reduced and the tensile strength strongly improved. The thermal stability increased with the increasing of irradiation doses up to 30 kGy. The modified thermal and mechanical properties of the selected film either non-irradiated or irradiated were compared with widely used commercially packaging films such as LDPE and PP films. Compared to commercially packaging films, the selected PVA/St bioblend film has higher tensile properties, good and closely thermal properties either non-irradiated or irradiated one. Hence, the study showed the development of modified PVA/St bioblend film, which can be used in many fields such as the packaging industry.