Zhong Xian OoiHanafi IsmailAzhar Abu BakarNoor Aziah Abdul Aziz2024-11-042024-11-042012-01http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/app.34860https://dspace-cris.utar.edu.my/handle/123456789/6171<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVOH)/rambutan skin waste flour (RWF) crosslinked films were successfully prepared by solution casting with glutaraldehyde (GLU) and hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) and without crosslinker in the presence of glycerol as a plasticizer. The properties of cast films were evaluated by tensile testing, water absorption, and degradation behavior at different weight ratios of PVOH and RWF. The tensile results show that the PVOH/RWF films crosslinked with HMTA exhibited a slight improvement in the tensile strength and Young's modulus but a lower elongation at break than that of GLU‐crosslinked films; this was attributed to the better crosslinking effect of HMTA, as shown by the Fourier transform infrared results. The HMTA‐crosslinked film showed a lower water absorption and water vapor transmission rate as compared to the GLU‐crosslinked and noncrosslinked films. A natural weathering test revealed that the addition of 1.5 wt % GLU and HMTA did not significantly affect the reduction in tensile properties, but the biodegradability test showed that the weight loss of noncrosslinked films was higher than those of the GLU‐ and HMTA‐crosslinked films. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012</jats:p>journal-article