Physico-Mechanical Analysis of Free Ethylcellulose Films Plasticized with Incremental Weight Percents of Dibutyl Sebacate

Abstract

This research was conducted to investigate the physico-mechanical characteris-tics of the ethylcellulose-based coating membranes plasticized with different weight percents of dibutyl sebacate. In this experiment, free thin polymer sheetings of the sample formulations, by incorporating incremental weight percents of the plasticizer, were prepared employing a revised casting method of delayed solvent evaporation, whereby similar flat specimens of standard dimensions were subjected to tensile loadings and extensions. The data were analyzed to fairly decide on a moderate concentration of the plasticizer to provide a rationale explanation of a strong, hard, and tough structure among the specimens. The data revealed that 40% (w/w) of the ester results in the toughest structure amongst the similar specimens of the series leading to an ultimate toughness of 3.31 mj/m³.