| Summary: | Starch has potential to be used in new, functional food packaging materials. The attractive factors of starch as a packaging material are its low price and degradable properties. However, brittleness hinders its function as a packaging film. In this study, chitosan nanofillers (CSN) were incorporated into sago starch (SS) formulations to improve the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties of the film. The synthesis of a new formulation from the optimization process resulted in increased mechanical properties; the tensile strength obtained for the sago starch/chitosan nanofillers (SS/CSN) film was 88 MPa compared with 46 MPa for the sago starch film (SSF). In terms of thermogravimetric analysis, the SS/CSN film sustained up to 390 °C with 60% weight loss, whereas SSF experienced a weight loss of 67% at 375 °C. The analyses summarize the concept of using biocomposites to improve the properties of film for the potential purpose in biodegradable packaging plastics. © 2019, BioResources.
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