The effect of water (as a primary plasticiser) content on the chemical structure and mechanical properties of thermoplastic tapioca starch (TPTS) film was evaluated. The TPTS films were produced by tape casting technique through mixtures of fixed amount of glycerol and varied contents of tapioca starch and water. The water content used in the films formulation were 30, 45, and 60 wt %. There was observed increase in hydrogen bonding interaction between starch and water molecules depicted by the downward shift between 3303-3281 cm-1. The excessive amount of water loading portrayed increase in crystallinity due to free volume movement of the starch particles. The changes in water loading also showed variation in the tensile strength and elongation at break of the TPTS films. This observation is because of the dependence of mobility of polysaccharide plastics on the water content in the premix. Therefore, starch forms entanglements with the plasticisers to form a flexible film.

The aim of this work is to study the influence of different proportions of glycerol on the properties of tapioca starch films. The films were characterized to determine crystallinity by using X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermal property by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and mechanical property by tensile test. The DSC thermograms show a decrease in the melting temperature (TPeak) with increase in the glycerol content. According to XRD diffractograms, pure starch exhibits crystallinity, but gelatinisation converts the starch film with 0 (w/w) % glycerol to amorphous, it gains back its crystallinity with the increase in the glycerol concentration. Mechanical properties were also influenced by variation of the percentage ratio of glycerol. The tensile strength was observed to decrease with increase in glycerol concentration whereas the elongation at break sharply increase with increase in glycerol concentration.

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