The aim of this present work is to investigate the effect of plasticizers like Sorbitol on microstructural and mechanical properties of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) and Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) blend films. The pure blend and plasticized blend films were prepared by solution casting method and investigated using wide angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) method. WAXS analysis confirms that the plasticizers can enter into macromolecular blend structure and destroy the crystallinity of the films. FTIR spectra show that there are a shift and decrease in the intensity of the peaks confirming the interaction of plasticizer with the blend. Mechanical properties like tensile strength and Young’s Modulus decrease up to 0.6% of Sorbitol content in the films. Percentage of elongation at break increases suggesting that the plasticized films are more flexible than pure blend films. These films are suitable to be used as environmental friendly and biodegradable packaging films. 1. Introduction Polymer blending is one of the most useful ways to have new materials with required properties and there have been great scientific and commercial progress in the area of polymer blends. This was driven by the realization that new molecules are not always required to meet the need for new materials and blending can usually be implemented more rapidly and economically than the development of new materials [1, 2]. Blends of synthetic and natural polymers represent a new class of materials and have attracted much attention especially in bioapplications. The success of synthetic polymers as biomaterial relies mainly on their wide range of mechanical properties, transformation processes that allow a variety of different shapes to be easily obtained at low production costs. Biological polymers represent good biocompatibility, but their mechanical properties are often poor; the necessity of preserving biological properties complicates their processability and their production costs are very high [3, 4]. Packaging plays an important role in marketing food and food related articles (processed food, bakery products, beverages, food grains, vegetables, and fruits). Food quality and safety are major concerns in the food industry. Packaging can be considered as an emerging trend that could have an impact on shelf-life extension and food safety. In general a packaging material has to fulfil certain requirements. Packaging makes distribution easier and protect the article from environmental conditions like sun light, dust, oxygen, moisture, microbes, mechanical stress, and so on. A
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