Use of Waste Red Seaweed Furceleran for Development of Green Thermoplastically Processable Bioplastics

The current research demonstrates boundaries of waste red seaweed furcellaran (FUR) for development of thermoplastically processable thermoplastic starch (TPS) compositions. Three different FUR concentrations (10, 30 and 50 wt.%) in relation to potato starch replacement were examined for their thermoplastic processability. Thermogravimetric (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), rheology and tensile mechanical tests were performed to assess performance of the developed TPS/FUR compositions. It was observed that the highest mechanical stress at break (almost 3 times higher than for neat TPS) is observed for TPS+50wt.% FUR composition, however, on the account of decreased deformability (only ca 10%), reduced thermal resistance at processing temperatures (150oC) as well as high shear sensitivity. Thus compositions TPS+30wt.% FUR and especially TPS+10wt.% FUR are more suitable for thermoplastic processing and development of TPS based composites with improved exploitation properties.