Durian is a seasonal fruit wildly grown in Thailand.Only one-third of durian is edible,
whereas the seeds (20-25%) and the shell are usually thrown away. Fresh durian seed consists
largely of starch (56% by dried weight) and might be considered such a suitable raw material for
producing biodegradable films. However, plasticized starch still exhibits problems such as high
water adsorption and the poor mechanical properties. To overcome these drawbacks, in this paper,
the addition of cellulose nanoparticle (CN) as the filler for reinforcement of the durian seed starch
(DSS) films was investigated. CN were prepared from a NaOH/urea/H2O solution of
microcrystalline cellulose using an ethanol/HCl aqueous solution as the precipitant. CN were
obtained with the size in the range of 50-100 nm. SEM micrographs of the fractured surface of
the composite films revealed the nonuniform distribution of CN in the DSS/glycerol matrix. With
the increasing CN content from 0 to 5 wt%, the tensile strength increased but the water vapor
permeability values decreased noticeably. The improvement of these properties may be attributed
to the good interaction between the CN filler and the glycerol plasticized-DSS matrix because of
the similar polysaccharides of cellulose and starch.