The Synergistic Reinforcing Effects of Nano‐Diamond and Chitosan‐Grafted MWNTs in Starch Films

Abstract

In this work, new ways to reinforce the performance of starch by incorporating nano-diamond (ND) and chitosan-grafted MWNTs (MWNTs-CS) are developed. The composites are characterized by tensile properties, dispersion properties, thermal analysis, fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), X-ray diffractions (XRD) studies, and water vapor permeability (WVP) tests. Loading of ND not only improves the solubility, but also increases the tensile strength, elongation at break and Young's modulus of the starch composite films, which increases by 235.82%, 78.98%, and 976.51%, respectively. In particular, the synergy effects of Young's modulus achieves the effect of "1 + 1 > 2" which may be attributed to the fact that ND can be adsorbed on the surface of MWNTs by -interactions, which prevents aggregation of MWNTs. Meanwhile, hydrogen bonds between grafted CS and the starch matrix are responsible for generating effective load transfer between ND/MWNTs-CS and the starch matrix, resulting in the simultaneously increased strength and toughness of the nanocomposites. Furthermore, composite film containing ND and MWNTs-CS shows the lowest water vapor permeability among the composite films prepared in this study.