Starch and Starch Derivative-Based Films

Food packaging materials have drawn the interest of scientific community, and several researchers have explored the use of biopolymers as an alternative source. Starch is considered one of the significant materials in food packing because of its low cost, low toxicity, biocompatibility, and biodegradability; however, its low mechanical properties can be improved by introducing plasticizers, polyols, sugars, lipids, waxes, wetting agents, emulsifiers, antioxidants, etc. There are various sources of starches including cereals, tubers and roots, pulses, and many more. Starch mainly comprises amylose and amylopectin that both influence the characteristics of starch by means of starch gelatinization, starch pasting, starch gelling and starch retrogradation, and syneresis. Different techniques can be used to evaluate the thermal properties of starch that may affect the structure and other properties of starches such as moisture sorption ability changed with thermal degradation. Moreover, starch compounds showed excellent properties against carbon dioxide, oxygen, and gases but lower towards water vapors. Besides these, the mechanical properties of starch and starch derivatives are mainly dependent on the structural cohesion of material used for the film formation. The reinforcing of starch with natural fillers or minerals and/or blending of starch with different boardable polyesters provides mechanical properties of starch-derived films. From the tensile property of starch-based films, the tensile strength increased by increasing the concentration of glycerol.