Development and Analysis of Poly Vinyl Alcohol/Orange peel powder biocomposite films

Environmental concerns are raised due to municipal solid wastes especially due to non-biodegradable packaging waste materials. To overcome such issues, researchers gained attention in biodegradable natural waste materials as an alternative to existing non-biodegradable packaging materials. In this work, Orange Peel Powder (OPP) chosen as a filler at varying proportion (5% to 20% of wt.) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) used a matrix to prepare biocomposite films by solution casting method. The films were analyzed with FT-IR, XRD, TGA, DSC, and tensile tests. The results of FT-IR and XRD show smooth dispersion of PVA and OPP, whereas samples are thermally stable up to 350°C & tensile properties of the prepared biofilms increased with inclusion of OPP from 6.20 MPa to 7.80 MPa and are better than the conventional-packaging materials which can be used as eco-friendly packaging materials.