Study on Physical and Mechanical Properties of BagasseFiber/Thermoplastic Starch Biocomposite

The use of natural polymers in composites has ceaselessly increased, due to environmental problems ofpetroleum-based polymers that are growing day by day. As the matter of the fact, the use of biodegradable polymers as a lower raw material costs from forest industries to develop new composites will not only reduce environmentalproblems but also affect the economy positively. This work evaluates the use of Bagasse fibers (BF) as a reinforcing agent to prepare thermoplastic starch (TPS) matrix plasticized with 28wt % of glycerol and 20wt % of water. Theresults showed that by increasing fiber content from 0 to 1.5 part per hundred (phr), the tensile strength and Young’s modulus were increased by 57% and 72% respectively, while the elongation was reduced from 26.8 to 14.1%. X-raydiffractograms (XRD) illustrated that gelatinization phenomenon of starch has been occurred in presence of plasticizer completely.

Keywords:

Biocomposite , Bagasse fibers , Thermoplastic starch , Mechanical properties