因應石油耗竭與日趨受到重視的環保議題，生質柴油及生物可分解材料的發展勢必為未來趨勢。然而目前市面上的生物可分解材料多為利用小麥、玉米等糧食作為原料，使其原料成本高昂進而影響其售價遠高於其他塑膠，使得價格成為目前生物可分解材料市佔率仍不及石油提煉塑膠1%的主因。本研究利用生質柴油所產生的副產物—廢甘油，與馬來酸進行合成並利用塗佈與溶劑鑄模技術製成成本低廉且機械性質符合市場需求之生物可分解薄膜。
本研究利用狹縫式塗佈穩定且能均勻產出薄膜的特性，將合成的生物可分解高分子透過塗佈技術製成薄膜，並探討如何避免薄膜生產過程中所產生的缺陷如氣泡(bubble)、針孔(pin hole)及Bénard Cells。為模擬生物分解薄膜在自然環境中降解的速率及情形，本研究根據ASTM D5338 及 D6400國際規範設計並架設一套土壤降解系統，研究初步結果顯示，合成之生物可分解薄膜可以於一個月內分解達70%以上。此外，本研究亦利用原料馬來酸所含之雙鍵，導入紫外光交聯製程提速，開啟了生物可分解膜材量產之可行性，期望未來可以取代市面上常見的塑膠種類，並增加生物可分解材料的市佔率。

Following the rising global awareness in environmental protection, promotion of the addition of biodiesel to petroleum has become a common practice, leading to increase in the production of biodiesel. With the large amount of biodiesel being produced, large quantities of byproducts are also generated. Crude glycerol is the main byproduct from biodiesel production and for every 9 kg of biodiesel, 1 kg of crude glycerol is produced. However, it is not economical to purify crude glycerol due to high cost and low efficiency. Therefore, the utilization of overproduced glycerol is a new problem to figure out. While converting waste glycerol into biodegradable polymers can address this issue and bring a greener earth simultaneously.
In this work, novel biodegradable polymeric material PGM, poly (glycerol maleate), is synthesized and fabricated into sturdy films via Slot-Die coating technology and crosslinked under different curing conditions: thermal curing and UV curing. The differences in mechanical and degradation properties are investigated between different grades of glycerol. This study also examined the peeling process and the introduction of water soluble release layer, carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC). It is found that thermally cured PGM (I), synthesized by waste glycerol and maleic acid, demonstrate the best mechanical properties. The introduction of UV curing process enables the feasibility of PGM film for mass production due to the increase of curing efficiency. Mechanical properties of UV cured PGM films can be adjusted by the irradiation time under UV light, under which the films become stiffer as curing time increases. It is also found that the presence of oxygen during UV curing process would retard the photopolymerization, thus, the introduction of nitrogen gas to create an oxygen-free environment in UV curing process is indispensable to improve the physical properties of PGM films.
Compost degradation experiments were conducted to ensure and measure the degradation rate of PGM films. It is observed that thermally cured PGM films are over 70% degraded within 30 days in aerobic composting environment. This work aims to expand the applications of biodegradable polymers from biomedical materials to packaging, agricultural mulch and commodity products, creating a novel environmental friendly plastic. As the cost of PGM is cheaper than many of the existing plastics, it is expected to be commercialized for the replacement of the pricy PLA that is currently available as additives for compost material.

Abstract II
List of Figure VI
List of Table IX
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1.1 Pollution Sources/Contributions 1
1.1.1 Introduction to Global Demand of Plastic Material 4
1.1.2 Introduction to Common Plastic Material Used in Agriculture 7
1.2 Biodegradable Polymer as a Novel Alternative Plastic Material 10
1.2.1 Agricultural Usage of Biodegradable Product 14
1.2.2 Regulations about Heavy Metals 18
Chapter 2 : Introduction to Biodegradable Polymer Synthesis, Fabrication, and Degradation 21
2.1 Polymerization Using Polyol and Polyprotic acid 21
2.1.1 Development of Polymerization Using Polyol and Polyprotic Acid 21
2.1.2 Thermal Polymerization 24
2.2 Slot-Die Coating and Other Coating Skills 28
2.2.1 Wet Coating 28
2.2.2 Introduction to Slot-Die Coating 29
2.3 Photopolymerization 31
2.4 Compost Degradation 36
2.4.1 The Aerobic Composting Process 40
2.4.2 The Design of Compost Vessel 45
Chapter 3 : Materials and Experimental Methods 48
3.1 Research Framework 48
3.2 Experimental Materials 49
3.3 Experimental Equipment and Instruments 51
3.4 Experimental Procedure 56
3.4.1 Polymer Synthesis (PGM) 56
3.4.2 Slot-Die Coating Process 56
3.4.3 Film Fabrication via heating 58
3.4.4 Film Fabrication via UV-light 58
3.5 Characterization of PGM and PGM (I) 60
3.5.1 Tensile Test 60
3.5.2 Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA) 60
3.6 Modification of UV-Box 60
3.7 Compost Degradation 61
Chapter 4: Results and Discussions 64
4.1 Synthesis and Fabrication of PGM Films 64
4.1.1 Coating Solution Proportion 64
4.1.2 Process Discussion 65
4.2 Characterization of PGM Films 68
4.2.1 Waste Glycerol Analyzed Using ICP-MS 68
4.2.2 Mechanical Properties 69
4.2.3 Thermal Properties 74
4.2.3 Modification of UV-Curing Process 75
4.3 Compost Degradation of PGM Films 83
4.3.1 Design and Modification of Compost Degradation Process. 83
4.3.2 CO2 Trap Efficiency 87
4.3.3 Biodegradation Percentage and Visual Observation 90
Chapter 5: Conclusions 94
Chapter 6 : Future Work 96
Chapter 7 : References 97

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