Biopolymers and Bioplastics

Biography

Biography: Paulo Sobral

Abstract

Films based on biopolymers have attracted interest of researchers because they are biodegradable. But, these materials have technological limitations principally due to the hygroscopic characteristic of biopolymers and plasticizers, usually, polyols. An alternative to improve the properties of these materials are the use of nanoparticles as loading. Although montmorillonite is the nanoparticle most used to produce biopolymers based nanocomposite films, laponite has an enormous potential because it is easily dispersed in water, outstanding solvent in the biopolymer film technology. Thus, this work presents results of some physical properties of recently developed nanocomposite films (NF) based on gelatin with different laponite concentrations. NF were prepared with casting film-forming solutions containing 0.0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0g laponite/100g gelatin on an adequate support and dried on controlled conditions. Glycerol was used as plasticizer. The NFs were characterized for gloss (60°), color (CIELab), thermal (TGA) and mechanical (tensile tests) properties. Moreover, NFs were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). NFs were transparent and homogeneous. NF gloss, color and surface micrographs were not altered by the laponite concentration. And, laponite improved the thermal stability and mechanical properties (increasing Young modulus and tensile strength) of the gelatin-laponite nanocomposites. These results indicated that laponite was well dispersed in the biopolymer matrix. FTIR and XRD spectra corroborated with this statement. These nanocomposites have a great potential to be used in the packaging industry