ABSTRACT:
The film of miracle herbal polymer, Moringa Oleifera was prepared along with 30% and 50% of plasticizers like propylene glycol, PEG-4000 and glycerol to ensure the spreading and/or the film forming capability of the herbal polymer. In this study, three plasticizers, namely polyethylene glycol 4000, propylene glycol and glycerol were selected and the aqueous film coating solution was prepared by incorporating different concentrations of the plasticizers. The evaluatory parameters of the prepared cast film of Moringa Oleifera like thickness, folding endurance, tensile strength, moisture loss, water uptake and vapour-pressure transmission rate were evaluated and the folding endurance value of the prepared films (F2, F6) was found satisfactory which ensures that the films prepared using the herbal polymer Moringa oleifera were having optimum flexibility and were no brittle. The percent moisture content (% W/W) of the film prepared with different proportion of glycerol and polyethylene glycol-4000 were found to be in between 3.2 to 3.5 (% W/W). It was observed that with increase in hydrophilic polymer concentration, the moisture content was also increasing. The water uptake (% W/W) of the film of the herbal polymer, Moringa Oleifera were found in between 4.1 to 4.4 (% W/W). In water uptake study, it was observed that the water uptake value increases with gradual increase in concentration of hydrophilic polymer. The water-vapour transmission rate through different film formulations showed that the films were permeable to water and the films showed uniform flatness without any observed constriction.