Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts

Growing production and consumption plastic worldwide is currently resulting in a significant solid waste and is causing serious pollution problems. Various approach has been attempted and photodegradation seems to be the environmental benign approach. However, the degradation rate that has been achi...

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Main Author:	Sutanto, Nelvi
Format:	Thesis
Language:	English
Published:	2019
Subjects:	T Technology
Online Access:	http://eprints.usm.my/48024/1/Photodegradation%20Performances%20Of%20Low-Density%20Polyethylene%20Composites%20Loaded%20With%20Photocatalysts.pdf
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spelling	my-usm-ep.480242021-11-17T03:42:10Z Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts 2019-10-01 Sutanto, Nelvi T Technology TA401-492 Materials of engineering and construction. Mechanics of materials Growing production and consumption plastic worldwide is currently resulting in a significant solid waste and is causing serious pollution problems. Various approach has been attempted and photodegradation seems to be the environmental benign approach. However, the degradation rate that has been achieved is only in the range of 0.03 to 0.21 %/h. Therefore, in this work, an appropriate photocatalyst that could expedite the photodegradation rate of the polymer was developed based on zinc oxide (ZnO), titanium dioxide (TiO2) and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) by sol gel method. The effect of ZnO/TiO2 ratio and wt% of g-C3N4 was investigated. The best photocatalytic activity performed by photocatalyst ZnO/TiO2 with ratio of 3:1 that was incorporated with 10 wt% g-C3N4 denoted as 10C-3ZT was selected to fabricate LDPE composite films. The optimized photocatalyst is 10C-3ZT with following features: dominated by zincite phase and minor traces of c-Zn2Ti3O8 together g-C3N4, formation of heterojunctions within ZnO/g-C3N4 and c-Zn2Ti3O8/g-C3N4, mixture of spherical and rod shape particles, low band gap energy of 2.5 eV have remarkable reduced recombination of e-h in 10C-3ZT photocatalyst thus resulted in 99% degradation within 45 minutes with kinetic rate constant of 0.093 min-1. LDPE composite films with 3 different thickness (1 mm, 0.1 mm and 0.035 mm) was prepared with 10C-3ZT. Compression moulding was used to produce 1 mm composite films and wet casting method for films with 0.1 and 0.035 mm thickness. The weight % of 10C-3ZT was varied from 1 to 10 wt% and the properties of LDPE/10C-3ZT composite films were compared with pure LDPE by analysing the changes in weight loss, carbonyl index, tensile strength, percentage elongation, morphology, chemical structure, degree of crystallinity. The weight loss was further enhanced with 10 wt% PVA functionalized photocatalyst (10C-3ZT-10 wt%-PVA) in LDPE polymer matrix. The total weight loss of 96% was attained in 350 h. Carbonyl index up to 2 was achieved. Enhanced OH• released due to heterostructure formation, increase in amorphous region and PVA functionalization for water absorption resulted in substantially improvement in degradation of LDPE, which was 47 times faster than pure LDPE. 2019-10 Thesis http://eprints.usm.my/48024/ http://eprints.usm.my/48024/1/Photodegradation%20Performances%20Of%20Low-Density%20Polyethylene%20Composites%20Loaded%20With%20Photocatalysts.pdf application/pdf en public phd doctoral Universiti Sains Malaysia Pusat Pengajian Kejuruteraan Bahan & Sumber Mineral
institution	Universiti Sains Malaysia
collection	USM Institutional Repository
language	English
topic	T Technology T Technology
spellingShingle	T Technology T Technology Sutanto, Nelvi Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts
description	Growing production and consumption plastic worldwide is currently resulting in a significant solid waste and is causing serious pollution problems. Various approach has been attempted and photodegradation seems to be the environmental benign approach. However, the degradation rate that has been achieved is only in the range of 0.03 to 0.21 %/h. Therefore, in this work, an appropriate photocatalyst that could expedite the photodegradation rate of the polymer was developed based on zinc oxide (ZnO), titanium dioxide (TiO2) and graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) by sol gel method. The effect of ZnO/TiO2 ratio and wt% of g-C3N4 was investigated. The best photocatalytic activity performed by photocatalyst ZnO/TiO2 with ratio of 3:1 that was incorporated with 10 wt% g-C3N4 denoted as 10C-3ZT was selected to fabricate LDPE composite films. The optimized photocatalyst is 10C-3ZT with following features: dominated by zincite phase and minor traces of c-Zn2Ti3O8 together g-C3N4, formation of heterojunctions within ZnO/g-C3N4 and c-Zn2Ti3O8/g-C3N4, mixture of spherical and rod shape particles, low band gap energy of 2.5 eV have remarkable reduced recombination of e-h in 10C-3ZT photocatalyst thus resulted in 99% degradation within 45 minutes with kinetic rate constant of 0.093 min-1. LDPE composite films with 3 different thickness (1 mm, 0.1 mm and 0.035 mm) was prepared with 10C-3ZT. Compression moulding was used to produce 1 mm composite films and wet casting method for films with 0.1 and 0.035 mm thickness. The weight % of 10C-3ZT was varied from 1 to 10 wt% and the properties of LDPE/10C-3ZT composite films were compared with pure LDPE by analysing the changes in weight loss, carbonyl index, tensile strength, percentage elongation, morphology, chemical structure, degree of crystallinity. The weight loss was further enhanced with 10 wt% PVA functionalized photocatalyst (10C-3ZT-10 wt%-PVA) in LDPE polymer matrix. The total weight loss of 96% was attained in 350 h. Carbonyl index up to 2 was achieved. Enhanced OH• released due to heterostructure formation, increase in amorphous region and PVA functionalization for water absorption resulted in substantially improvement in degradation of LDPE, which was 47 times faster than pure LDPE.
format	Thesis
qualification_name	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD.)
qualification_level	Doctorate
author	Sutanto, Nelvi
author_facet	Sutanto, Nelvi
author_sort	Sutanto, Nelvi
title	Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts
title_short	Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts
title_full	Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts
title_fullStr	Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts
title_full_unstemmed	Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts
title_sort	photodegradation performances of low-density polyethylene composites loaded with photocatalysts
granting_institution	Universiti Sains Malaysia
granting_department	Pusat Pengajian Kejuruteraan Bahan & Sumber Mineral
publishDate	2019
url	http://eprints.usm.my/48024/1/Photodegradation%20Performances%20Of%20Low-Density%20Polyethylene%20Composites%20Loaded%20With%20Photocatalysts.pdf
_version_	1747821868328419328

Photodegradation Performances Of Low-Density Polyethylene Composites Loaded With Photocatalysts

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