Preparation and Properties of Green Thermoplastic Tapioca Starch Materials

Green matrials have been successfully fabricated from tapioca starch using urea and ethanolamine as the plasticizers.Scanning electron microscopy(SEM) showed that the original tapioca starch granule was destroyed,mixed plasticizer penetrated into the granule interior,successfully plasticizing the tapioca starch,and made it into a uniformly continuous phase.When the GTSM with different plasticizer contents stayed at a relative humidity of 50% for 10?d,mechanical testing indicated that the mechanical properties of GTSM with 30% mixed plasticizer appeared to be the best,the tensile stress,strain,Young's modulus and breaking energy reached 8.51?MPa,74.2%,102.5?MPa and 2.309?N·m,respectively.X-ray analysis revealed that the mixed plasticizer could effectively restrain the tapioca starch from retrogradation of GTSM.When the plasticizer mass content was 20%,30% and 40%,thermogravimetric analysis(TGA) showed that the lost weight of GTSM was 15.61%,15.98% and 19.74%,in turn,and the thermostability of materials degraded.