Effect of kind of plasticizer and their combinations on the properties of hemicellulose films
摘要
Plastics have been implied in food packaging industry for decades due to their advantageous properties like lightweight, affordability, processability, and chemical resistance. The growing applications of plastics in various industries led to the accumulation of tremendous amount of plastic waste, around 6 billion metric tons globally, causing serious environmental problems and depletion of resources due to their limited renewability. Furthermore, the sense awareness among the masses about the harmful impacts of plastics raised a great urge in scientists to address these concerns, by directing their research focus towards developing environment-friendly biopolymers. Hemicellulose has attracted a lot of attention for its renewability, biodegradability and abundance in nature. A considerable amount of hemicellulose is present in corncobs, besides cellulose and lignin. This study aimed to extract hemicellulose from corn cob, fabricating, and characterizing the biodegradable hemicellulose films, to evaluate the effect of various plasticizer combinations. The extracted hemicellulose was used to prepare films using different concentrations of glycerol, sorbitol and xylitol as plasticizers. The films were characterized using fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), mechanical, barrier and optical properties. The results of the study indicated that the hydrophilic nature of plasticizers contributes to uplifting the moisture content from 16.30 to 24.52% and water vapor permeability from 5.14 to 8.56 g mm/ mm2 s mmHg of the plasticized hemicellulose films. The influence of various plasticizer combinations was analyzed on the mechanical properties, with tensile strength decreasing from 13.84 to 8.58 MPa and elongation increasing from 7.62 to 11.46%. Interestingly the biodegradability of hemicellulose films was decreased by the inclusion of plasticizers from 83.72 to 77.21%.