A study of the effect of silica particles addition on some physical properties of PVC as a packaging material

• Published in: Iraqi journal of physics Vol. 13; no. 26; pp. 76 - 91
• Main Author: Ali, Zahra`a M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Baghdad 10-02-2019
• Subjects: Silica, Physical properties, PVC, Plastic packaging, Polymer composites
• ISSN: 2070-4003; 2664-5548
• DOI: 10.30723/ijp.v13i26.286

In this work, varying compositions of SiO2 micro filler were addedwith the Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) and samples have been preparedusing film casting technique. The results have been analyzed andcompared for PVC samples with (1 wt%, 3 wt%, 5 wt% and 10 wt%)SiO2 micro filler. Mechanical characteristics such as tensile strength,elongation at break and Young`s modulus were measured for all thesamples, where the tensile strength was increased from 8.39 Mpa forpurified PVC to 16 Mpa for 3% SiO2/PVC composite. Also, thermalconductivity measurement values illustrated that composite materialshave a good thermal insulation at 10 wt. %, thermal conductivity wasdecreased from 0.1684 W/m. K for PVC to 0.1310W/m. K at 10%SiO2/PVC composite. Absorptivity test was also carried out for thesesamples, the results of this study proved that PVC and SiO2-PVCcomposites have low diffusion coefficients ranging from (10-13- 10-10m2/s). Similarly, the dielectric properties like dielectric constant, lossfactor, resistance, and volume resistivity were performed; thedielectric constant was increased from 2.1039 for PVC to 3.658 for3% SiO2/PVC composites, while the dielectric loss factor wasdecreased from 0.0144 for PVC to 0.0137 for 5%SiO2/PVCcomposite. The values of resistance were increased from17259.99(Ω) for purified PVC to 29185.75(Ω) for 10% SiO2/PVCcomposites. Volume resistivity was increased from 0.3794 x109 (Ω.cm) for PVC to 0.5179x109 (Ω. cm) for 10% SiO2/PVC composites.FTIR spectroscopy was employed for all PVC-composite samplesand its results were investigated, there are systematic increases inabsorbance intensity spectra with SiO2 ratios attributed to gooddistribution of inorganic fillers (Symmetric increases). Themicrostructure and morphology of the prepared samples wereinvestigated by using optical microscope. It can be observed that, thesamples with (3% SiO2/PVC) are glossy and smooth withoutagglomeration of (SiO2) particles in (PVC) matrix. The resultsdemonstrate that PVC-composite films prepared in this study showpromising potential to achieve good materials for plastic packagingapplications.