Development of Photodegradable Environment Friendly Polypropylene Films

In order to minimize the environmental pollution due to littered plastic packaging polypropylene (PP) films, the photodegradation of PP films was carried out under natural weathering conditions using ferric carboxylates as prodegradants. Since sunlight (energy source for the photodegradation) is abundantly available, photodegradation has been chosen one among the various degradation technologies. The photodegradation was followed using the simplest analytical techniques like Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, mechanical properties measurements and scanning electron microscopy. All the ferric carboxylates used as prodegradants have a strong influence on the photodegradation behaviour of PP and facilitate the UV induced photooxidative degradation. The effectiveness of the prodegradants in accelerating the PP photodegradation was of the order of ferric caprate ＞ ferric laurate ＞ ferric myristate ＞ ferric palmitate ＞ ferric stearate. The plots of days of exposure required to reach a certain carbonyl index value such as 0.2-0.3, 0.4-0.5, 0.6-0.7, 0.8-0.9 and 1.0-1.1 and the t1/2 parameter obtained from the elongation at break percentages versus number of carbon atoms presented in the alkyl part of the prodegradants added showed that the rate of UV induced photooxidative degradation of PP is linearly related to the number of carbon atoms presented in the alkyl part of the added ferric carboxylates. Moreover, the increase in the concentration of Fe (Ⅲ) ion in the PP films plays an important role in the photodegradation and accelerates PP degradation. The results also showed that the PP and PP containing 0.2% of ferric carboxylates degraded faster in the summer season than that in the winter season. This effect is due to the influence of the average weathering parameters mainly outdoor temperature.

並列關鍵字

Polypropylene ； Ferric carboxylates ； Natural weathering ； FTIR ； SEM

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