Effect of glycerol as plasticizer on the tensile properties of chitosan/microcrystalline cellulose films

The chitosan/microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) film was produced through solution casting with different composition of MCC and the presence of plasticizer. This chitosan /MCC film is a biodegradable polymer due to all the ingredient was natural resources. MCC and chitosan can be found abundantly in the earth, thus, can be obtained easily. One testing was conducted which was tensile test. The optimum ratio of chitosan/MCC was 97:3 (chitosan:MCC). At this ratio, chitosan /MCC film has the highest tensile strength which was 14.73 MPa without adding any plasticizer. By the addition of plasticizer, properties of chitosan /MCC film was improved. Glycerol was used in chitosan /MCC film as plasticizer. Higher tensile strength and elongation at break follow by lower Young's modulus were the result showing that with the addition of glycerol, their film properties were able to be enhanced. About 13.57% increment in tensile strength and 47.66% in elongation at break of optimum ratio for plasticized chitosan/MCC films compared to unplasticized films.