The 13th Global Conference on Polymer and Composite Materials (PCM 2026)

Abstract: Starch/cellulose composite is one of the most promising systems since both matrix and reinforce agent are renewable eco-friendly materials and have same chemical unite glucose, which results in an excellent compatibility. In this presentation, development of starch-based materials reinforced by cellulose nano-crystals from different resources and fibrillary celluloses with different strength and diameter/length ratios will be systematically discussed, in particular the starch-based films used for edible packaging and medicine capsules. Starch-based self-reinforced composites will be also discussed. As expected, addition of crystals increased the Young’s modulus and tensile strength of starch-based materials and decreased elongation at break. The effect of macro- and nano-fibrillar celluloses on the starch films were systematically investigated based on the microstructures, compatibility and mechanical performances. Results showed that the FCs increased modulus (about 170%) and tensile strength (about 180%) significantly as expected since they are well-compatible and some chemical interactions. The nano-fibrillary celluloses (CNFs) improve the toughness (about 20%) of the starch film more efficiently, which improved the well-recognized weakness of starch-based materials. The nano-scale roughness on the surface of the starch film caused by different shrinkage ratios between starch and CNFs during drying reduced water sensitivity, which is another well-recognized weakness of starch film.

Figure-1 Developed and commercialized starch-based materials and composites.

Biography: Prof Long Yu is currently Chief Scientist of Institute of Chemistry, Henan Academy of Sciences; China; Former Director of Sino-Singapore International Joint Research Institute and Professor in South China University of Technology. Prof Long Yu used to work in CSIRO, Australia as Principal Scientist for 18 years. Prof Yu has had more than 230 SCI papers published and citation time is more than 23000 (h-index 74). He has been selected as a Fellow of Royal Australian Chemical Institute in 2002, and currently been pointed as Editorial Board of 8 SCI journals and Chairs or Session Chains for many international conferences. In the last 20 years, Prof Yu has been working on various polymeric materials from renewable resources. He has successfully developed and commercialized 9 products through spinning-off manuscript companies or transforming developed techniques to industries, including various starch-based materials and products, such as pure starch-based plastics and medicine capsules and loss field foam. Recently he has been working on various slow-release fertilizer, in particular the SRF with water retention using starch-based hydrogels.