Waste Medical Cotton Reinforced Chitosan Biocomposite Film Using Tannic Acid as the Crosslinking Agent

Abstract

Sustainable biocomposites were prepared from the reinforcement of waste medical grade cotton (MGC) in a chitosan matrix. This work presents an investigation of the influence of tannic acid on the chitosan-MGC biocomposite. A series of samples comprising pure chitosan film, MGC and chitosan-MGC biocomposites were crosslinked with tannic acid. The interfacial interaction among the components in biocomposite was established by FTIR and SEM study. The crystallinity of biocomposite was in between chitosan film and MGC sample as shown by XRD. Crosslinked chitosan-MGC biocomposite shows improvement in mechanical properties. The thermal stability of the composite sample is considerable stabler than MGC.

Keywords

• waste medical cotton
• chitosan
• biocomposite
• tannic acid
• crosslinking agent
• mechanical property