Tensile Properties and Fracture Morphology of Polyethylene Terephthalate Mixed Rice Starch Particle Based Blend Composites

This study examines the effect of addition rice starch particle (RSP) in Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) based blend composites. The concentration of RSP in PET was varied at 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 wt% with fixed percentage of sorbitol for 2 ml. The blend composites were produced by solution mixing method. All samples were tested by tensile and morphological observation after tensile test. The tensile test proves that the addition of RSP in PET increased tensile strength of blend composites. The maximum tensile strength was in 15 wt% RSP in PET for 9.79 MPa. Optical microscope displays minimum porosity with good fusion between RSP and PET. The addition of starch in polymer is suggested to reduce the percentage of using non-biodegradable polymer plastic. This research is important due to the development of biodegradable polymer. Material Science Research India www.materialsciencejournal.org ISSN: 0973-3469, Vol.17, No.(1) 2020, Pg. 47-53 CONTACT Mochamad Asrofia asrofi.teknik@unej.ac.id Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Jember, Kampus Tegalboto, Jember 68121, East Java, Indonesia. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oriental Scientific Publishing Company This is an Open Access article licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/msri/170107 Article History Received: 2 April 2020 Accepted: 30 April 2020