Enhancement in Thermal and Tensile Properties of ZrO₂/Poly(Vinyl Alcohol) Nanocomposite Film

We report the preparation of zirconium oxidepoly(vinyl alcohol) nanocomposite film by solvent casting method. Existence of ZrO₂ nanoparticles in the film has been evidently proved by the results of XRD, FTIR and AFM studies. Mechanical tests show that, compared with pure PVA, the elongation at break (%), the tensile strength and Young's modulus of the nanocomposite film is greatly improved by about factors of 1.40, 1.79 and 1.69 respectively. Differential scanning calorimetry analysis shows that the stability of the nanocomposite film is almost two fold increase than the pure PVA film. The enhancement in the thermal and mechanical properties of the nanocomposite film is mainly due to the homogeneous dispersion of ZrO₂ in the polymer matrix and strong interfacial interactions between the both components.