Miscibility and Migration Ability of Triacetin as an Alternative Plasticizer in Polyvinyl chloride Compounds

The effects of triacetin as an alternative plasticizer to polyvinylchloride (PVC) in term of solubility, miscibility and migration ability were studied. Comparison was done with PVC/di-2-ethyl hexyl phthalate (DEHP) and PVC/DEHP/triacetin with the total amount of plasticizers of 50phr. Calculation of solubility parameters of the plasticizers and PVC suggested that triacetin should have higher miscibility with PVC compared with DEHP. However, volatility test done on the PVC/50DEHP, PVC/20DEHP/30Triacetin and PVC/50Triacetin compounds indicated that triacetin has higher migration ability than DEHP due to the lower molecular weight of the triacetin. Glass transition temperature (T-g) determination using dynamic mechanical thermal analysis showed that PVC/20DEHP/30Triacetin compound has the lowest T-g suggesting synergistic effect of both plasticizers in improving plasticization efficiency due to the presence of high and low molecular weight of plasticizers. Thermogravimetric analysis on PVC/50DEHP and PVC/50Triacetin indicated that the stability of PVC reduced in the presence of triacetin instead of DEHP.