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The Effect of Drying of Glycerol-Plasticized Starch upon Its Dielectric Relaxation Dynamics and Charge Transport

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Abstract

Carbohydrate polymers are promising materials for an eco-friendly future due to their biodegradability and abundance in nature. However, due to their molecular characteristics and hydrophilicity, are often complicated to be investigated via spectroscopic methods. Thermoplastic starch plasticized by glycerol was prepared through melt processing conditions using twin screw extruder. Here we show how the presence of water molecules affects the dielectric response and charge transport dynamics over broad frequency (10−1 to 107 Hz) and temperature (− 140 to 150 oC) ranges. Overall, 7 dielectric processes were observed and differentiation between electronic and ionic conductivities was achieved. Two segmental relaxation processes were observed for each sample, ascribed to the starch-rich and glycerol-rich phases. Although the timescales of the two segmental relaxations were found different, both arise from the same temperature, giving thus an alternative explanation on what is reported in the literature. The origin of the σ-relaxation was attributed to hydrogen ions and was found to be proportional to the ionic conductivity according to the Barton, Nakajima and Namikawa relation. The presence of water molecules was found to enhance the ionic conductivity, indicating that water contributes charge carriers when compared to the dried sample.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank professor Dr. Ivan Chodák (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia) for valuable discussions over TPS-based materials and for reading and providing with constructive comments about the manuscript prior to submission.

Funding

H.P. would like to acknowledge financial help from The Slovak Grant Agency under the project number VEGA 2/0109/23.

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  1. Stavros X. Drakopoulos

    Present address: Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering & Princeton Materials Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Bath, Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

    Stavros X. Drakopoulos

  2. Polymer Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dubravska cesta, 9, 845 41, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Zdenko Špitalský & Hamed Peidayesh

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Széchenyi István University, Egyetem tér 1, Győr, H-9026, Hungary

    László Lendvai

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Contributions

SXD: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing, Visualization, Supervision. ZŠ: Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Resources, Writing—review & editing. HP: Methodology, Validation, Investigation, Writing—review & editing. LL: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing—review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition.

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Drakopoulos, S.X., Špitalský, Z., Peidayesh, H. et al. The Effect of Drying of Glycerol-Plasticized Starch upon Its Dielectric Relaxation Dynamics and Charge Transport. J Polym Environ 31, 5389–5400 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10924-023-02962-3

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