Sweet Potato- Cassava Tensile Strength / Sweet Potato- Cassava Elongation at Break

Introduction

The use of plastic (polyethylene) has increased throughout these years. Non-

biodegrable and high cost raw materials used for making film making products creates an

adverse impact on the world’s environment that prompted the biodegradable, eco-friendly,

low-cost material for production of plastics. (Oluwasina, O. O., et al., 2019) Bioplastic are

made of biodegradable materials that has capability to degrade easily when disposed. Many

researches mainly focuses on improving the properties while maintaining the low cost of

material used for making plastics. Global demand for biodegradable plastics will continue

to rise. Production of root and tuber crops are still stable while there is rapid increase in

producing and consuming bio plastics.

The starch used for the bioplastic solution were made from root crops such a sweet

potato and cassava, and had found that they have characteristics viable for making biofilms.

Many researchers have investigated the preparation of different starch-based bioplastics,

such as potato starch, cassava starch, and corn starch. These starch-based bioplastics are

exploited as a promising type of commercially preserved bioplastics to extend the shelf life

of food. However, it was found out that starch-based bioplastics have some disadvantages,

including low thermal resistance and poor mechanical properties. (De Azêvedo, L. C.,

Rovani, S., Santos, J. J., Dias, D. B., Nascimento, S. S., Oliveira, F. F., … Fungaro, D. A., 2020)

The considered using of different plasticizer to make a great impact to their product.

Different researches have different components added to their bioplastic solution that aims
to enhance its mechanical properties such as tensile strength, elongation at break,

thickness, opacity, water absorption and solubility.

Tensile Strength and Elongation at Break

Amount of starch concentration

Several research has found out that adding more concentration to the starch can

heighten the tensile strength of a biofilm. Making it harder and tends to resist if it interacts

with water substances. In the study of researchers Abdullah, A. H. D., et al. (2018) the

highest amount of concentration of starch can increase the hardness or strength of the

bioplastic. Using the lowest concentration resulted to 0.71 MPa while using the highest

concentration resulted 2.57 MPa. The result of elongation at break it showed using the

2.75:1 ratio of starch reached the highest percentage. The ratio 3.5:1 has the lowest

percentage.

Different Plasticizers and adding different amount of contents.

Glycerol is one of the most commonly used plasticizer in making bioplastics.

Researches that used it as a plasticizer showed a result that can decrease the films tensile

strength. The outcome of the product was less stiff, flexible, and sometimes opaque.

Increasing the amount of glycerol content can make it more flexible and able to bend.

Researchers Mukuze, S, et al (2019) tried decreasing the content but it made the film more

brittle and resulted to increase the percentage elongation at break of the films. In the study

of Ballesteros-Má rtinez, L., et al. (2020), The results showed that increasing the plasticizer

concentration from 10 to 50% decreased puncture strength values from 85.89% for

glycerol-plasticized films and only 49.85% for sorbitol-plasticized film, while its elongation
percentages presented values that ranged between 1.82 and 13.24% for glycerol-

plasticized films and 1.84 and 9.00% for sorbitol-plasticized films. Bharti, et al.’s study

revealed an 8 of 11 decrease in the tensile strength of composite film with the increasing

concentration of glycerol. The elongation at break for the composite film indicated a

significant (p < .05) increase with the increase of plasticizer content. Glycerol can create

intermolecular spaces between polymer chains and can only result to a decrease of the

bonds attached to starch chains. Thus, lowering its strength and allowing it to expand. Also,

it is more likely to loosen up when it interacts with water substances.

Sorbitol was also a commonly used plasticizer that have an opposite effect than

Glycerol. The product made in the study of Lim, W. S., et al. (2020) using sorbitol content

was harder and rigid. The film was hard but not extendable. Adding more can make it

harder while decreasing can make it brittle. The % elongation at break have very low

values when sorbitol was used. The sorbitol has lower chance of loosening or breaking

when it interacts with water due to its structure similarity with starch.

Different substance added to the bioplastic solution

Researches tried adding different substances to their bioplastic solution to have

effect or impact to their product. Researchers Nuriyah, L., et al. (2018). Used egg white and

resulted to have effect in increasing the tensile strength and resulted to a rise and fall

values for its elongation at break. Oluwasina, O. O. et al. (2019) research on oxidized starch

also turned to be a factor that can change the mechanical properties of a starch-based films.

The bioplastic became more compact and resulted to being harder to break. As for the

elongation at break, the more amount of oxidized starch the more its elongation increase.
For Souza, A. C., et al (2012) study about nano clay, due to a large number of nanoclay

particles tend to interact with larger particles, which affect the intercalation effect of

nanoclay particles in the bioplastic. As reported, adding amounts of clay caused a decrease

in the tensile strength of the films. While the elongation at break of the films with clay

nanoparticles increased.

Chitosan coating study of Bangyekan, C., et al, added chitosan coating to the starch

film at the maximum load using machine direction and transverse direction. It was

reported that tensile strength values from using both machine direction and transverse is

higher than the other test. That resulted the film to be harder to break. While the %

elongation values from using the machine direction is more than using the transverse

direction. Fakhouri, F. M.,et al (2012) conducted a study for edible biofilms and adding

gelatin in the solution. Gelatin has been also used to be added in the solution that resulted

to an increased in tensile strength and the percentage elongation at break was also

observed and it also produced higher values. For Siagian, M., et al. (2016) study for

microcrystalline cellulose content also resulted to increase its tensile property but its

elongation at break decreased as the amount of micro cellulose content increased.

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Conclusion

Different researches have different components added to their bioplastic solution

that aims to enhance its mechanical properties such as tensile strength, elongation at

break, thickness, opacity, water absorption and solubility.

 Using two different plasticizers with varying amount per sample. Using two

plasticizers at a time can either be harmful or useful. Glycerol, due to its hydrophilic

component, it can hold water substance and able to break hydrogen bonding that allow the

biofilm to expand which make it a good plasticizer. In the other side, sorbitol has higher

stiffness and firmness that resulted to a bio plastic having a high value in terms of tensile

strength.

Further research is necessary to improve their mechanical properties since tensile

strength and elongation at break are mostly required for films to withstand the stress and

maintain its form as well as packaging properties during applications in food packaging.

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(Sweet Potato)

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Cassava

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Added:

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