چكيده فارسي :
Nowadays attentions were drawn over development of biodegradable polymers to reduce
the use of fossil fuels [1]. Polycaprolactone (PCL) is a hydrophobic, biodegradable aliphatic
polyester with crystallinity about 50% that can be synthesized from crude oil via the ring
opening polymerization of caprolactone monomers [2]. Inorganic-organic hybrid
nanocomposites (NCs) have attracted more attention because they combine rigidity and high
stability of inorganic nano-fillers with flexibility, ductility, dielectric and easy processability
of organic matrix [3].
In this paper, nanocomposite films of polycaprolactone (PCL)/ZnO-PVA were prepared by
casting/solvent evaporation method. For this purpose, ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) were first
modified with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), at room temperature by ultrasound irradiation
method. Then, PCL/ZnO-PVA NCs were obtained by addition of various weight percentages
(2, 4 and 6 wt%) of ZnO-PVA into the PCL matrix, under vigorous stirring and subsequent
ultrasonic irradiation (Figure 1). The structural characterization of the NC films was carried
out using transmission electron microscopy (Figure 2) and X-ray diffraction. It was found that
relative changes in the peaks were observed, as the concentration of filler was increased. In
addition, embedding the NPs into PCL exhibited a reduction in thermal stability of NCs as
compared to the pure PCL. Tensile tests for the prepared films with different NP loadings
showed that the tensile strength of the NCs have significantly improved compared with pure
PCL.
