Polymer Engineering and Science, Vol.40, No.6, 1298-1305, 2000
On mechanical properties of sago starch/poly(epsilon-caprolactone) composites
Four types of sage starch were incorporated into a poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) matrix, native, predried, thermoplastic starch (TPS) granules and TPS. All systems were found to be phase-separated. Tensile properties were obtained after formulation of various mixtures and processing of suitable test specimens. It was found that elongation at break of composites comprising native starch and thermoplastic starch decreases almost linearly with volume fraction of starch whereas tendencies to nonlinear dependencies were observed for predried and thermoplastic starch granules. Except for composites containing native starch, tensile strength was found to decrease linearly with volume fraction of starch. However, statistical analysis of the corresponding regression coefficients shows that the coefficients ruling the compostion dependence of tensile properties are not significantly different for the four starch types. One may conclude that in all cases, tensile properties decrease almost linearly with volume fraction and maximum Volume fraction of starch loading is around 0.6. Scanning electron micrographs of fracture surfaces revealed weak interfacial adhesion between sage starch and the polymer matrix.