Abstract
The research included corn starch (CS) films using sorbitol (S), glycerol (G), and their combination (SG) as plasticizers at 30, 45, and 60 wt %, with a traditional solution casting technique. The introduction of plasticizer to CS film-forming solutions led to solving the fragility and brittleness of CS films. The increased concentration of plasticizers contributed to an improvement in film thickness, weight, and humidity. Conversely, plasticized films reduced their density and water absorption, with increasing plasticizer concentrations. The increase in the amount of the plasticizer from 30 to 60% showed a lower impact on the moisture content and water absorption of S-plasticized films. The S30-plasticized films also showed outstanding mechanical properties with 13.62 MPa and 495.97 MPa, for tensile stress and tensile modulus, respectively. Glycerol and-sorbitol/glycerol plasticizer (G and SG) films showed higher moisture content and water absorption relative to S-plasticized films. This study has shown that the amount and type of plasticizers significantly affect the appearances, physical, morphological, and mechanical properties of the corn starch biopolymer plastic.
Highlights
The research included corn starch (CS) films using sorbitol (S), glycerol (G), and their combination (SG) as plasticizers at 30, 45, and 60 wt %, with a traditional solution casting technique
The control corn starch films prepared from zero plasticizer were somehow brittle, rigid, and fragile
The results showed that the tensile strength of the tested films was reduced when the plasticizer concentration rose from 30% to 60%, irrespective of the plasticizer form
Summary
The research included corn starch (CS) films using sorbitol (S), glycerol (G), and their combination (SG) as plasticizers at 30, 45, and 60 wt %, with a traditional solution casting technique. Plasticized films reduced their density and water absorption, with increasing plasticizer concentrations. The landfill areas are limited, and expanded incineration capacity requires high capital investment and intensifying environmental risks These problems have contributed to the design and development of the environmentally sustainable and renewable materials as substitutes to the traditional non-biodegradable materials [7,8,9]. The use of biomass such as kenaf [13], sugar palm [14,15], water hyacinth [16], ginger [4,17], and sugarcane bagasse [18,19] to strengthen the composites might contribute to partial waste degradation, which in turn help to solve environmental problems [15,20,21]. Natural polymers based composites offers significant advantages over synthetic fibre reinforced petroleum matrix based composites with regard to biodegradability, biocompatibility, design flexibility, and sustainability [23]
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