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being exposed to readily form hydrogen bonds with NH
3
+
of the
chitosan. However, the TS of biodegradable blend lm prepared at the
starch to chitosan ratio of 1:1 and 0.5:1 was not signicantly different.
This phenomenon indicated the critical ratios of the greatest miscibility
of the two main lm-forming components.
Elongation at the break (E) is an indication of the lms exibility and
stretchability (extensibility), which is determined at the point when the
lmbreaks under tensile testing. The value of E was affected by the chito-
san ratios (Fig. 10B). The average E values of the biodegradable blend lm
behaved inversely to the TS value, decreasing from12.99% to a minimum
8.06% when the rice starch and chitosan ratio was 0.5:1 (Fig. 10B).
E was reduced in the presence of chitosan, probably due to the in-
creased crystallinity of starch in the blend lm.
Liu et al. [50] studied the mechanical properties of starch/chitosan
blending membrane. Elongation-at-break (E), values of chitosan/starch
blend membranes with the different starch masses are shown in Fig. 11.
The E membranes' values were affected by the starch contents. This
phenomenon has also been reported by Xu et al. [31]. With the mass
of starch increasing, the E value of obtained membrane increased in
the initial stage until reaching a maximumafter whichthe curve started
bending downwards. The data in Fig. 11 could be explained as follows:
with the addition of starch, the E value of blend membrane increases
due to the formation of hydrogen bonds between NH
3
+
of the protonat-
ed chitosan and OH