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THE DEVELOPMENT OF BIODEGRADABLE FILMS FOR FOOD PACKAGING

Sonia Amariei, Vasile-Florin Ursachi, Ionuţ Avrămia

Abstract

Annually, worldwide the food industry generates huge quantities of plastic packaging (polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyethylene terephthalate, etc.) and due to their chemical structure takes hundreds of years to degrade, thus creating major environmental problems. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop biodegradable films that can be used for food packaging and to identify their physical and mechanical properties. The biodegradable films were obtained using 150 ml Milli-Q water and different quantities of agar-agar (AA) 0.5 - 3 g, sodium alginate (SA) 1 - 3.5 g, glycerol (G) 0.5 - 2 g and starch (S) 0.5 - 3 g. The properties such as thickness of film, tensile strength (TS), elongation, density, water vapor transmission rate (WVTR), water vapor permeability (WVP), water activity (aw) and hardness were determined. The thickness of films were between 29.90 - 94.10 ?m. According to ASTM 882-02, the tensile strength of films were between 8.61 - 68.79 MPa (AA/SA/G film), while for elongation were between 2.38 – 12.16%. For the density, the lowest value was 1.13 g/cm3 while the highest value was 2.33 g/cm3. The values obtained for hardness were between 206 – 506 HL. Water vapor transmission rate and water vapor permeability were between 7.21 - 22.80 g/m2·h and 0.08 - 1.25 mm/m2·h·kPa, respectively. The value of aw being between 0.28 - 0.38, it can be concluded that the films are microbiologically safe and can be used successfully for food packaging.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2021/6.1/s25.35

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