Preparação e caracterização de blendas de amido termoplástico

Abstract

Polymeric materials are discarded in various ways at the end of their use. A large part of them is irresponsibly disposed of, for example, in landfills, seas and oceans, and even in rainwater springs, causing incalculable damage to the environment. Therefore, the synthesis of new polymeric materials from natural compounds, known as natural polymers, is of great importance. The great advantage of this class of polymers lies in their biodegradability since many of the known synthetic polymers do not have a defined degradation time. In this context, a biopolymer based on corn starch (thermoplastic starch - TPS) doped with various concentrations of natural latex was synthesized with the aim of increasing the material's mechanical strength while maintaining its biodegradability. TPS was produced without the addition of acids but with glycerol and higher temperatures using a more powerful propeller stirrer. However, the high viscosity of TPS made it difficult to obtain a suitable mixture. This resulted in a more fragile material in terms of tensile strength and elongation. Blends with latex showed better mechanical properties compared to pure TPS. Specifically, the blend with 0.5% latex stood out due to a lower quantity of microbubbles formed in the structure, associating these microbubbles to the sample's rupture points.