Preparation and characterization of micro- crystalline cellulose / chitosan films

Abstract

The microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) chitosan film was produced through solution casting with different composition of chitosan and different plasticizers. This MCC chitosan film was a biodegradable polymer due to all the ingredient was natural resources. MCC and chitosan can be found abundantly in the earth, and thus, can be obtained easily. Several testing were conducted such as tensile test, scanning electron microscope and Fourier transform infrared. The optimum ratio for the MCC chitosan was 90: 10 (MCC: chitosan). At this ratio, MCC chitosan has the highest tensile strength which was 42.16 MPa for the film without adding the plasticizer. MCC chitosan film also having the addition of plasticizer to improve film's properties. Results show that addition of plasticizer able to improve properties of MCC chitosan film such as high tensile strength, high elongation at break and low Young's modulus value. The percentages when compared MCC chitosan film with glycerol as plasticizer than the control film on the optimum ratio for tensile strength was higher 106%; while for film with PEG as plasticizer was higher 102%, elongation at break was higher 121% and 110% for both glycerol and PEG respectively when compared to control film.