2.6 Study of Mechanical Properties
The tensile strength, elongation at break and Young’s Modulus of elasticity were measured using a universal testing machine (INSTRON 3366). The nanocomposite hydrogels were cut to a size of 100 mm × 20 mm length by width. The extension rate speed was set at 10 mm/min. The tensile strength, elongation and Young’s modulus of elasticity were obtained from the load extension curves (Liu & Kim, 2012). Two types of nanocomposite hydrogels were used; negative control and nanocomposite hydrogel with phomopsidione. Any defect shown or unintentional breakage of the nanocomposite hydrogel was removed and the results from the three trials were taken to average. A t-test was conducted to evaluate the statistical significance of the average values between the two test samples.