Determination of Crystallization and Melting Behaviour of Poly-lactic Acid and Polypropyleneblends as a Food Packaging Materials by Differential Scanning Calorimeter

The food packaging materials commonly used is made from polymers synthetic base on petroleum derivatives. However, the use of synthetic polymers has negative impacts on the environment, because it is difficult to degrade naturally either by biotic or abiotic process. This is a problem for the environment and therefore it needs to do the assessment of the technology to reduce the degree of difficulty on its degradation or to find a new material that can be degradable naturally. One of the most important properties of food packaging materials is the polymer crystallinity. This refers to the overall level of crystalline component in relationship to its amorphous component. It is directly related to many of key properties exhibited by a semi-crystalline polymer including brittleness, toughness, stiffness or modulus, optical clarity, creep or cold flow, barrier resistance and long-term stability. Thus, in this study, PP blends with the PLA and meltsat 250oCfor 4 hours, and investigates their crystallization and melting behavior using DSC at cooling rate of 10 and 40oC/min. The results show that base on their thermograms, with increasing the cooling rate will decreasing the crystallinity or increasing amorphous area underthe peaks.