Email: [email protected]
Status: 2nd Year Graduate Student
Undergraduate Institution: Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
PhD Thesis: Properties of EVOH copolymer blends and novel “EVOH-like” copolymers
Due to shifting focus on sustainable development, the environmental impact and recycling of multi-layered packaging materials have gained importance in order to reduce plastic waste generation. These very useful materials are difficult to recycle mechanically due to their complicated composition such as the presence of adhesive layers binding the different barrier layers of the multi-layered material. Ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymers (EVOH) provide excellent barriers against oxygen at low humidity, but are hydrophilic in nature, making them susceptible to losing their barrier properties at high relative humidity. Therefore, they are used in multi-layered structures along with hydrophobic polyolefins. However, commercial grade EVOH copolymers are incompatible with polyethylene and polypropylene. Moreover, there exist several grades of EVOH copolymers varying in their ethylene content which have different applications. However, the recyclability of these copolymers is not well studied. I work on determining the miscibility and compatibility of the different grades of EVOH copolymers and study the structure-property relationships of new “EVOH-like” materials for designing multi-layered structures from compatible materials. In the first phase of study, miscibility of different grades of EVOH copolymers will be studied on binary blends of the different copolymers by using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) as the primary technique. There also exists an opportunity to explore the possibility of designing multi-layered films entirely from “EVOH-like” materials by reducing non-alternating E-CO copolymers. Overall, we hope to gain a better understanding of the recyclability of the EVOH copolymers of different ethylene content and design multi-layered packaging materials from compatible materials to improve their recyclability.