In this study, baking raw materials that are economically important in South America, such as cassava starch and sugarcane bagasse fiber, produced well-shaped biodegradable trays. The fiber and Na-MMT interfere with foaming, so additional amounts of water and batter are needed to form complete trays.
The addition of fiber and Na-MMT decreased the density and stress at break and increased the strain at break values of the starch foams. The foams manufactured with fiber and Na-MMT presented more pronounced increases in the water equilibrium moisture levels when the samples were stored in RH above 75%, which resulted in materials with stable mechanical properties despite variations in the RH between 33 and 60%. This behavior is interesting because the main problem with these materials is their sensitivity to moisture.
The studied processing conditions resulted in good nanoclay dispersion in the polymeric matrix, which led to the formation of an exfoliated structure.
All of the produced foams had high water absorption capacities (>50%) when immersed in water (1 min), which is related to their porosity and lower density. The produced materials need further development to improve the expansion, water sorption capacity, processing times, as well, the use of hydrophobic additives and the study of the possibility to microwave these foams; however, this study is a key first step in the production of composites on an industrial scale.
In this study, baking raw materials that are economically important in South America, such as cassava starch and sugarcane bagasse fiber, produced well-shaped biodegradable trays. The fiber and Na-MMT interfere with foaming, so additional amounts of water and batter are needed to form complete trays.The addition of fiber and Na-MMT decreased the density and stress at break and increased the strain at break values of the starch foams. The foams manufactured with fiber and Na-MMT presented more pronounced increases in the water equilibrium moisture levels when the samples were stored in RH above 75%, which resulted in materials with stable mechanical properties despite variations in the RH between 33 and 60%. This behavior is interesting because the main problem with these materials is their sensitivity to moisture.The studied processing conditions resulted in good nanoclay dispersion in the polymeric matrix, which led to the formation of an exfoliated structure.All of the produced foams had high water absorption capacities (>50%) when immersed in water (1 min), which is related to their porosity and lower density. The produced materials need further development to improve the expansion, water sorption capacity, processing times, as well, the use of hydrophobic additives and the study of the possibility to microwave these foams; however, this study is a key first step in the production of composites on an industrial scale.
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