Influence of Glycerol Content on the Physic-Chemical and Mechanical Properties of Cassava Starch Films

The use of natural polymeric materials has been growing notably in order to replace packaging from non-renewable sources. In this sense, cassava starch is a very promising natural polymer for this purpose due to its ease of production, the low cost, besides being biodegradable. However, cassava starch biofilms when dried have a brittle character requiring the addition of a plasticizer. Thus, biofilms were synthesized based on cassava starch (3%) with different percentages of glycerol (5%, 10%, 20%, 40% and 50%) to evaluate changes in physic-chemical and mechanical properties. The results indicate that the increase in percentage of glycerol contributed directly to the increase of water vapor permeability while decreases the contact angle and modulus of elasticity of cassava starch films.