| Summary: | Ecological concerns have resulted in a renewed interest in environmental-friendly composites issues for sustainabledevelopment as a biodegradable renewable resource. In this work we used cellulose fibers from recycled newspaper as reinforcementfor thermoplastic starch in order to improve its mechanical, thermal and water resistance properties. The compositeswere prepared from corn starch plasticized by glycerol (30% wt/wt of glycerol to starch) as matrix that was reinforcedwith micro-cellulose fibers, obtained from used newspaper, with fiber content ranging from 0 to 8% (wt/wt of fibers to matrix).Physical properties of composites were determined by mechanical tensile tests, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetricanalysis, water absorption measurement and scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that higherfibers content raised the tensile strength and elastic modulus up to 175% and 292%, respectively, when compared to thenon-reinforced thermoplastic starch. The addition of the fibers improved the thermal resistance and decreased the waterabsorption up to 63%. Besides, scanning electron microscopy illustrated a good adhesion between matrix and fibers. Theseresults indicated that thermoplastic starch reinforced with recycled newspaper cellulose fibers could be fruitfully used ascommodity plastics being strong, cheap, abundant and recyclable.
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