Paper Title
Preparation And Properties Of Poly (Vinyl Chloride)/Poly (Butylene Succinate)/Wood Flour Composites

Abstract
This study aimed to improve the toughness and biodegradability of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) by inclusion of poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) and wood flour (WF). PVC was first melt blended on a two-roll mill with different weight ratios of PBS. Of the four PVC/PBS blends evaluated, the 80/20 wt% blend exhibited the highest impact strength compared to the neat PVC. Scanning electron microscopy analysis confirmed the better compatibility of this 80/20 (wt%) PVC/PBS blend. This blend was further filled with three loadings of WF (10, 20 and 30 parts per hundred parts of blend resin). As expected, the addition of WF resulted in a decrease in the impact strength of the samples, but an increase in the heat deflection temperature (HDT) and water uptake with the increase in the WF contents compared to that of the neat 80/20 (wt%) PVC/PBS blend. The higher water uptake might accelerate the biodegradation of PVC/PBS/WF composites by allowing the microorganism to penetrate into the products using water as a medium. It can be concluded that the PBS improved both the toughness and biodegradability of the PVC/PBS blend, while the WF caused an increase in the HDT and also the biodegradability of the PVC/PBS/WF composites. Keywords- Poly (vinyl chloride), Poly(butylene succinate), Wood flour, Biodegradability, Composites.