biodegradable carboxymethyl cellulose films modified by polyvinyl alcohol and cellulose nanowhiskers:(2) thermal, water vapor permeability and surface hydrophilicity properties

carboxymethyl cellulose (cmc)-polyvinyl alcohol (pvoh) blend film was produced through casting. cellulose nanowhisker (cnw) was produced by means of acid hydrolysis of cotton linter and cmc-pvoh-cellulose nanowhiskers through which fully degradable bionanocomposites were prepared. prepared nanowhisker suspension contained rod like particles averaging lengths of 240 nm and diameters of 13 nm. an amount of 6.40% reduction in water vapor permeability (wvp) and 9.31% enhancement in initial contact angle were achieved through a 10% wt pvoh addition in the cmc film. differential scanning calorimetery (dsc) results indicated that the addition of pvoh induces an increase in melting point of the cmc film. a 28.21% reduction in wvp was observed at 10% wt cnw content as compared with blend film. the sample containing 7% cnw, exhibited the lowest surface hydrophilicity (contact angle = 59.28o). glass temperatures (tg) of the blend film and bionanocomposite film of 3% cnw were recorded as 164.3oc and 167.8oc, respectively. through an addition of 7% cnw in the blend film, a reduction of  7.2oc in the melting point was observed.