Transforming waste bio-mass to novel grafted copolymer

Hibiscus sabdariffa (Roselle) is a cellulose rich (73.9%) waste bio-mass found in abundance through-out the world. It has light weight and high tensile strength that promotes its use as backbone for graft copolymerization. Various reaction parameters for the graft copolymerization were optimized to use it with effective monomer individually and then in binary vinyl monomeric mixtures, to explore the additive effect of comonomers on percentage grafting, properties and the behavior of fiber. The graft co-polymers were characterized by XRD, TGA, DTA, SEM and FTIR techniques and evaluated for physico-chemical changes like moisture absorption, swelling behavior, dye uptake studies and chemical resistance. With increase in percentage grafting, the percentage crystallinity, crystallinity index, hydrophilicity were reduced whereas an increase in physico-chemico-thermal resistance, hydrophobicity, miscibility with organic solvents improved.