The results for tensile strength (T), elongation at break (3) and
Young modulus (Y) for all film samples are presented in Table 3. The
addition of higher contents of plasticizer increased the films’
elongation capacity and decreased their tensile strength, as
expected. Film samples plasticized with glycerol showed lower
tensile strength than films plasticized with sorbitol with the same
plasticizer content, for both starch and flour based films. This
behavior can be associated with the molecular structure of glycerol,
which possesses a small chain, more able to enter into the polymeric
net (Cuq et al., 1997). The smaller size of glycerol and its
greater amount of related water increase its effectiveness as
a plasticizer, and contributed more plasticization effect than
sorbitol at equivalent mass content. Ryu et al. (2002) observed the
same behavior for high amylose corn starch films.