Open Access

ARTICLE

Biocompatible Blends Based on Poly (Vinyl Alcohol) and Solid Organic Waste

by Antonio Greco*, Francesca Ferrari, Raffaella Striani, Carola Esposito Corcione^*, Francesca Ferrari, Raffaella Striani, Carola Esposito Corcione

Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento Via per Arnesanno, 73100, Lecce, Italy.

*Corresponding Author: Antonio Greco. Email: .

Journal of Renewable Materials 2019, 7(10), 1023-1035. https://doi.org/10.32604/jrm.2019.07778

Abstract

This work is aimed at the development of new green composite materials through the incorporation of the solid organic waste (SOW) in a thermoplastic matrix. After being ground, the organic waste was exposed to a sterilization process, though an autoclave cycle, in order to obtain a complete removal of the bacterial activity. The SOW was found to have a high amount of water, about 65-70%, which made uneconomical its further treatment to reduce the water amount. Therefore, a water soluble polymer, poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) was chosen in order to produce SOW based blends. However, in order to reduce the viscosity of the PVA/SOW slurry, further amount of water was added. The very low viscosity attained by the water suspension allowed to process the PVA/SOW blends by a pressure-free process, for the production of samples, which were afterwards subjected to physical and mechanical characterization. Flexural tests showed the promising properties of the developed blends. In particular, the relevance of porosity was assessed. Increasing the water amount involved a signification increase of porosity, due to a faster water evaporation during processing. On the other hand, compared to neat PVA, addition of SOW allowed to significantly decrease the porosity of the produced samples. Despite this, the mechanical properties of the PVA/ SOW blends were shown to be lower than those of neat PVA processed analogously.

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