Biodegradable plastics can break down into water, carbon dioxide, and/or methanol by microorganisms, offering several advantages over conventional plastic, such as waste reduction, source reduction, and energy saving. PHBV and natural rubber are individually biodegradable, but the rubber-PHBV blends have never been studied to assess this property. It is hypothesized that the addition of rubber retains PHBV biodegradability. Therefore, the biodegradability of PHBV/rubber blends was studied in an aerobic composting system at 58 β. The result has shown that the pure PHBV has much higher degree of biodegradability than that of the rubber-PHBV blend. The addition of the natural rubber did improve the elasticity of the PHBV, but it weakened the feature of the biodegradability of the PHBV. In the future, a better weight fraction of the natural rubber in the blend is need to be found.No embargoAcademic Major: Chemical Engineerin
