Evaluation of Structural Properties of Cellulose Ether-Corn Starch Based Biodegradable Films

Abstract

The object of this study was to investigate the physicochemical interactions between starch and cellulose ethers when they were blended to obtain biodegradable films. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy results revealed the hydrogen bond formation between polymer chains and/or plasticizer molecules and hence good compatibility of the film constituents. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns indicated that cellulose ethers could be used to increase the strength and stiffness of the starch films due to their improvement on crystallinity. Simultaneous evaluation of XRD and optical microscopy results revealed that methylcellulose films had three-dimensional ordered crystalline structure and starch and carboxymethylcellulose films showed randomly distributed small crystallites and amorphous regions.