Environmentally Friendly Oil-Modified Polyesters as Polymeric Plasticizers for Poly(vinyl chloride)

Oil-modified polyesters were synthesized to serve as polymeric plasticizers for PVC. A total of four polymeric plasticizers with different average molecular weights were prepared. Characterizations were done using Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy, proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and gel permeation chromatography. Some of the tests conducted on PVC films include thermal stability test using thermogravimetric analyser, determination of glass transition temperature (T_g), plasticizer migration and leaching resistance test, morphology study of plasticized PVC films using field emission scanning microscope, toxicity test, and tensile test. Owing to the plasticizing effect of the palm oil-based compound, T_g of the plasticized PVC has decreased to an average of 65 °C at 20 wt% loading. The polymeric plasticizer is also able to contribute positively to the thermal stability and mechanical properties of the PVC films. Some of the advantages of incorporating polymeric plasticizer with high molecular weight includes lower rate of leaching from plastic, and improved tensile strength and elongation at break. Besides, thermal stability of the plastic studied using Kissinger’s and Flynn–Wall–Ozawa’s approaches shows that PVC blended with high molecular weight oil-modified polyester is more thermally stable, evidenced by the increase in the activation energy of decomposition, E_d. Toxicity test using brine shrimp egg shows encouraging results, where the oil-based plasticizer is considerably less toxic compared to some of the commercial plasticizers.