Preparation and characteristics of oxidized potato starch films

Starch films were developed from oxidized potato starch (OPS) with glycerol as a plasticizer at different contents. The OPS films were transparent and flexible. The mechanical properties of these films were measured, and the results indicated that the film with 19.4% glycerol exhibited the desirable mechanical properties. X-ray diffraction study showed that the increase of glycerol content led to a decrease in the crystallinity for OPS films, and storage conditions such as storage time, storage temperature and relative humidity also had certain effects on the retrogradation of starch owing to re-crystallization. Anti-leakage, anti-crosslinking, and stability in acid or alkali solutions of the OPS films were also studied, and the results indicated that the OPS films had excellent anti-leakage ability for vegetable oil, good anti-crosslinking ability in saturated formaldehyde vapor, and good stability in acid aqueous medium, but poor stability in alkali aqueous medium.