Mechanical and thermal properties of promising polymer composites for food packaging applications

Abstract

Blending starches with biodegradable polycaprolactone (PCL) was used as a route to make processable thermoplastics. When developing biodegradable polymer composites it is important to use high concentrations of starch for legislative and cost reasons. The addition of starch has a significant effect on all physical properties including toughness, elongation at break and the rheological behaviour of the melt. To enhance the physical properties, we used cellulose acetate propionate (CAP) as a cellulose derivative with high amylase starch and PCL blends. It is suggested that the PCL/starch/CAP blends are partially miscible. It was found that the yield tensile strengths of most PCL/Starch/CAP blends were higher than that of pure PCL itself. There was a big difference between glass transition temperature values of PCL/Starch/CAP blends and the pure PCL glass transition temperature which indicates that no phase separation occurs. Addition of CAP to starch and PCL blends improved the mechanical and thermal properties even at high content of starch.